M  LACORDAIRE 1 

BY  COUNT  DHAUSSONVILLE 


LACORDAIRE 


Lacordaire 

From  a  miniature  by  Mme.  Delliens 


Frontispiece 


LACORDAIRE 

BY  COUNT   D'HAUSSONVILLE 

OF    THE    FRENCH    ACADEMY 
TRANSLATED   BY  A.  W.   EVANS 


LONDON 

HERBERT    ftf    DANIEL 

95  NEW  BOND  STREET,  W. 

19*3 


L-3   Hsa. 


:  -/i : 


\*\\ 


PREFACE 

Pulpit  eloquence  seems,  in  the  history  of  litera- 
ture, to  be  a  peculiarly  French  gift.  When  we 
seek  the  finest  models  of  the  eloquence  of  the 
bar  or  of  the  tribune,  it  is  to  antiquity  that  we 
go,  and  no  name  has  overshadowed  those  of 
Demosthenes  and  of  Cicero.  The  England  of  the 
last  two  centuries  has  given  us  examples  of  Parlia- 
mentary eloquence  that  can  be  compared  with 
those  which  France  has  produced  during  the  same 
epoch,  and  the  speeches  of  Burke,  of  Fox,  of 
Brougham,  do  not  yield  to  those  of  Mirabeau,  of 
de  Serre,  or  of  Berryer.  But  it  is  not  the  same 
with  her  preachers,  whose  inferiority  Taine  points 
out  in  his  "  History  of  English  Literature,"  and 
for  pulpit  eloquence  no  country  is  comparable 
with  the  land  of  Bossuet,  of  Bourdaloue,  and  of 
Massillon.  If  among  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
we  meet  with  some  who  can  be  placed  by  their  side, 
— a  Saint  John  Chrysostom,  a  Saint  Gregory  of 
Nazianzus, — on  the  other  hand,  they  are  without 
rivals  in  the  literature  of  modern  peoples,  and  of 
this  form  of  human  thought  it  is  assuredly  the 
French  language  that  offers  the  finest  specimens. 
The  ancients,  with  whose  lives  eloquence  was  so 
constantly  mingled,  said  that  the  great  orator  has 
in  him  something  divine — "  aliquid dtvinum."  Is 
not  this  especially  true  when  he  who  has  received 
the  gift  of  expressing  his  thought  by  speech  puts 


cs 


671^6 


vi  PREFACE 

this  gift  in  the  service,  not  of  some  human  and 
passing  cause,  but  of  that  which  is  eternal  and 
Divine?  In  truth,  he  is  at  once  a  man  of  action  and 
a  man  of  thought,  for  at  one  stroke  he  agitates 
crowds  and  ideas.  While  he  is  labouring  for  the 
salvation  of  souls,  he  is  raising  a  monument  which 
calls  forth  the  admiration  of  men  of  letters,  and  if 
"the  good  "  is  his  object,  "the  beautiful  "  is  his 
instrument.  Thus,  one  can  say  that,  of  the  dif- 
ferent forms  of  human  genius,  sacred  eloquence  is 
that  which  gives  most  complete  employment  to 
human  faculties,  for  it  supposes  in  the  same  man 
the  co-operation  of  an  apostle  and  of  an  artist 
both  of  whom  work  in  God. 

With  this  French  gift,  with  this  Divine  gift,  no 
one  has  been  more  richly  endowed  than  Jean 
Baptiste  Henri  Lacordaire,  with  the  exception, 
however,  of  Bossuet.  But  while  Bossuet  was  a 
universal  genius,  superior  in  everything  and  by 
everything, — in  eloquence,  in  controversy,  in  his- 
tory,— Lacordaire  was  only  an  orator  ;  perhaps,  I 
dare  to  say,  more  of  an  orator  than  Bossuet,  at 
least  in  this  respect,  that  he  had  in  a  higher  degree 
"the  tones  that  move,  the  voice  that  vibrates  and 
charms,  and  the  gesture  which  completes  speech." 
Thus  one  can  say  of  him  that  he  is  the  type  of  the 
preacher,  and  in  this  capacity  his  place  was 
marked  out  in  advance  in  a  series  which  would 
gather  together  all  the  literary  glories  of  France. 

But  is  it  solely  the  preacher  in  Lacordaire  that 
can  interest  us?  Is  it  not  as  much  and  more  the 
man  himself,  as  he  appeared  living  and  throbbing 
behind  the  brilliant  veil  of  his  oratory,  or  showing 
himself  with  open  heart  in  the  intimacy  of  his  cor- 
respondence?     We  shall  hear  all  the  echoes  of 


PREFACE  vii 

that  age,  "  everything  in  which  he  had  loved," 
resounding  in  the  depths  of  that  sonorous  soul. 
From  this  priest,  from  this  monk,  none  of  our 
passions  or  of  our  sufferings  remained  alien  ;  for 
those  with  which  his  experience  did  not  make  him 
acquainted,  his  intelligence  enabled  him  to  divine. 
Finally,  he  was  one  of  the  precursors  and  authors 
of  that  Catholic  renaissance  of  which  our  contem- 
poraries to-day  are  the  surprised  witnesses,  and, 
among  the  questions  that  engage  and  divide  us,  one 
will  not  find  perhaps  a  single  one  that  has  not  been 
debated  or  anticipated  by  him.  Thus,  in  studying 
his  epoch  and  his  life,  it  will  be  in  certain  respects 
our  own  epoch  that  we  shall  believe  we  see  passing 
in  advance  before  our  eyes,  and  our  own  life  that 
we  shall  have  the  illusion  of  living  again.  We 
shall  perceive  there,  as  in  a  magic  mirror,  the  re- 
flection of  our  own  trials,  and  the  presage  of  our 
own  restless  destinies.1 

1  There  exist  two  very  complete  and  very  interesting-  biogra- 
phies of  Father  Lacordaire.  One  of  them  is  due  to  Father 
Chocarne,  who  was  one  of  his  brothers  in  Saint  Dominic,  the 
other  to  M.  Foisset,  his  oldest  and  closest  friend.  M.  de  Monta- 
lembert  has  also  devoted  to  him  some  admirable  pages  under  the 
title  of  "A  Nineteenth-Century  Monk."  I  am  naturally  much 
indebted  to  these  three  works,  but  also  to  Father  Lacordaire's 
correspondence,  which  was  almost  entirely  unpublished  at  the 
time  they  appeared,  and  which  to-day  comprises  no  fewer  than 
eight  volumes.  I  have  also  had  access  to  a  certain  number  of  un- 
published letters,  and  I  thank  those  who  have  been  good  enough 
to  entrust  me  with  them. 


CONTENTS 

PTER  PAGE 

I.     Childhood  and  Youth       .   .  i 

II.     The   Seminary — First   Relations    with 

Lamennais  .  .  14 


III.     The  "Avenir 


32 


IV.  Rupture  with  Lamennais  —  Montalem- 

BERT   AND    MADAME    SwETCHINE         .            .  5 1 

V.     The  Stanislas  Lectures  and  the  First 

Sermons  at  Notre-Dame              .         .  77 


VI.     The  Restoration  of  the  Order  of  Saint 
Dominic  .  ... 


92 


VII.  The  Sermons  at  Notre-Dame  and  their 
Influence  on  Contemporary  Preach- 
ing       .  .  ...   108 

VIII.     Lacordaire  in  Private  Lief — The  Friend 

and  the  Priest  .  .  .         .   132 

IX.     The    Republic    and   the    Empire  —  Last 

Years  .  ...   159 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

LACORDAIRE Frontispiece 

From  a  miniature  by  Mme.  Delliens 

TO   FACE   PAGE 

LACORDAIRE,  AGED  THIRTY-FIVE  ....  20 

From  a  drawing  by  Des  Robert 

Charles  de  Montalembert 32 

lacordaire 102 

From  the  painting  by  Theodore  Chasseriau  (1840) 

LACORDAIRE   IN    1840 Il8 

From  a  drawing  by  Hippolyte  Flandrin 

LACORDAIRE 148 

From  an  engraving  by  Martinet  of  Bonnassieux's 
portrait  (184 1 ) 

LACORDAIRE 168 

From  a  lithograph  by  Llanta  (1848) 

LACORDAIRE 184 

From  the  bust  by  Bonnassieux 


.     .     LACORDAIRE    .     . 

CHAPTER  I 
CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

By  a  singular  coincidence,  Burgundy  has  had 
the  honour  of  giving  birth  to  the  three  greatest 
Christian  orators  of  whom  France  boasts.  Saint 
Bernard  was  born  at  Fontaine,  near  Dijon ;  Bossuet 
in  Dijon  itself;  Lacordaire  at  some  leagues  from 
Dijon,  in  the  village  of  Recey-sur-Ource,  on  the 
twenty-second  day  of  the  month  of  Floreal  in  the 
year  Ten  of  the  French  Republic,  as  his  certificate 
of  birth  says,  or  on  the  13th  of  May,  1802,  as  we 
would  say  to-day.  His  father,  Nicolas  Lacordaire, 
practised  at  Recey  the  profession  of  medical  officer. 
He  was  a  man  of  rather  liberal  opinions,  but  in  spite 
of  this,  during  the  Revolution  he  concealed  in  his 
house  the  parish  priest  of  Recey,  who  had  been 
proscribed  for  refusing  to  take  the  oath  to  the 
Constitution,  and,  according  to  Father  Chocarne, 
it  was  by  this  very  parish  priest  that  Lacordaire 
was  baptised.  Nicolas  Lacordaire  died  four  years 
after  the  birth  of  this  son,  leaving  his  widow, 
Anne  Marie  Dugied,  burdened  with  four  children 
who  were  still  young.  Madame  Lacordaire  was  the 
daughter  of  a  councillor  of  the  Parliament  of  Dijon. 
"  Christian,  courageous,  and  vigorous,"  her  son 
has  called  her,  but  her  piety  had  in  it  nothing  mys- 


LACORDAIRE 


tical  or  fanatical,  and  she  gave  her  children  a  virile 
and  rather  stern  education.  She  read  Corneille  to 
them  as  much  as  the  Gospel,  and  spoke  to  them  as 
much  of  honour  as  of  God.  Perhaps  it  is  to  this 
early  teaching  that  we  must  attach  the  very  keen 
feeling  of  honour  which  Lacordaire  held  through- 
out his  life,  a  feeling  more  human  than  ecclesi- 
astical, but  one  which,  none  the  less,  came  to  his 
aid  at  several  junctures  of  his  sacerdotal  career. 

Madame  Lacordaire  was,  however,  far  from 
neglecting  the  religious  education  of  her  children. 
When  Henri  was  seven  years  old,  she  herself 
brought  him  for  his  confession  to  the  parish 
priest  of  Saint  Michael's  of  Dijon.  "I  do  not 
know  what  I  said  to  him  or  what  he  said  to 
me,"  Lacordaire  has  written,  "  but  the  memory  of 
that  first  interview  between  my  soul  and  the  repre- 
sentative of  God  left  a  pure  and  profound  im- 
pression upon  me.  I  have  never  since  gone  into 
the  sacristy  of  Saint  Michael's  of  Dijon,  nor  have  I 
ever  breathed  its  air,  without  my  first  confession 
appearing  before  me  under  the  form  of  that  fine 
old  man  and  the  simplicity  of  my  own  childhood." 

Lacordaire  passed  at  that  time  through  a  period 
of  childish  fervour  which  found  expression  in 
rather  odd  manifestations.  His  favourite  plea- 
sure was  to  preach  in  a  pretended  chapel  which 
his  mother  had  fitted  up  for  him.  His  brothers 
and  his  nurse  were  his  congregation.  When  the 
latter,  alarmed  by  the  vehemence  of  his  gestures 
and  the  trembling  of  his  voice,  would  say  to  him  : 
"Oh,  Master  Henri,  you  are  going  to  hurt  your- 
self; do  not  excite  yourself  so  much"  ;  "  No,"  he 
would  answer,  "too  many  sins  are  committed; 
fatigue  is  nothing,"  and  he  would  go  on  at  a  still 
greater  rate  with  his  tirades  about  departing  faith 
and  declining  morals. 

At  ten  years  of  age,  the  little  preacher,  to  whom  a 


CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


priest  who  had  resigned  his  functions  and  married 
had  taught  the  first  elements  of  Latin,  entered  the 
Imperial  College  of  Dijon,  half  of  his  fees  being 
paid  by  an  exhibition.  Lacordaire  always  retained 
a  bitter  memory  of  his  university  education.  Like 
Michelet  (who  compared  himself  with  a  frightened 
owl),  Lacordaire  was  at  first  the  sport  and  butt  of 
his  companions  during  their  times  of  recreation. 
In  order  to  escape  from  their  ill-treatment,  he  used 
to  take  refuge  in  the  class-room,  and  there,  hidden 
under  a  bench,  away  from  all  eyes,  he  would  pour 
out  his  tears  before  God,  offering  Him  his  suffer- 
ings as  a  sacrifice. 

This  support  and  this  consolation  were  soon  to 
fail  him.  Indeed  Lacordaire's  great  complaint 
against  the  education  he  received  at  the  college 
was  that  it  had  destroyed  his  faith.  At  the  age  of 
twelve  he  had  made  his  first  communion.  But  let 
him  speak  himself:  u  It  was  my  last  religious  joy 
and  the  last  ray  of  sunshine  from  my  mother's  soul 
on  mine.  Soon  the  shadows  thickened  around 
me  ;  a  cold  night  encompassed  me,  and  I  no  longer 
received  in  my  conscience  any  sign  of  life  from 
God.  I  was  an  indifferent  pupil,  and  no  success 
marked  the  course  of  my  early  studies  ;  my  intelli- 
gence declined  at  the  same  time  as  my  morals,  and 
I  walked  on  that  road  of  degradation  which  is  the 
punishment  of  unbelief  and  the  great  reverse  side 
of  reason.  .  .  .  I  left  the  college,  at  seventeen,  with 
my  religion  destroyed,  and  with  morals  which  had 
no  longer  any  curb." 

All  Lacordaire's  biographers  and  all  his  con- 
temporaries agree  in  saying  that  the  judgment 
which  he  thus  passes  upon  himself  is  marked  by 
excessive  severity.  An  indifferent  pupil  he 
certainly  was  not,  and  the  prize-list  of  Dijon 
College  testifies  to  the  numerous  successes  he 
obtained  in  his  final  classes,  above  all  in  rhetoric. 


LACORDAIRE 


As  for  his  morals,  it  would  be  a  complete  mistake 
to  make  him  out  a  sort  of  Saint  Augustine,  whose 
youth  had  been  a  prey  to  gross  disorders,  and  who 
had  to  expiate  a  long  period  of  excess.  The  truth  is, 
I  believe,  to  be  found  in  these  lines  of  M.  Foisset, 
his  intimate  friend  and  his  companion  in  the  law 
school  :  "The  love  of  study  and  the  elevation  of 
his  sentiments  had  preserved  him  from  vulgar 
excess ;  he  was  even  relatively  chaste,  without 
contact  with  women,  like  the  Hippolytus  of 
Euripides,  yet  without  prudishness."  What  re- 
mains certain  is  that,  with  an  ardent  nature, 
susceptible  not  only  of  tenderness  but  of  passion, 
he  entered  into  the  world  without  a  positive 
religion,  without  an  assured  moral  doctrine, 
having  no  other  rule  of  life  than  the  feeling 
of  honour,  and  no  other  beacon  than  "the  human 
ideal  of  glory."  One  understands  how,  some 
months  before  his  death,  casting  back  on  his  past 
life  the  austere  glance  of  a  priest,  he  had  a  very 
vivid  feeling  of  the  perils  which  he  had  incurred, 
and  how  he  could  not  forgive  the  University 
for  having  exposed  him  to  them. 

Lacordaire  left  the  college  at  the  age  of  seven- 
teen, and  inscribed  his  name  as  a  student  in  the 
Dijon  faculty  of  law.  The  teaching  there,  without 
depth  and  without  philosophical  bearing,  interested 
him  but  little,  and  he  was,  at  least  by  his  own 
account,  an  indifferent  student  of  law.  Happily 
he  was  destined  to  find  elsewhere  a  use  for  the  rare 
faculties  with  which  his  fellow-pupils  already 
agreed  in  crediting  him.  The  period  was  182 1. 
A  great  movement  of  ideas  impelled  the  youth  of 
the  time  into  paths  which  were  still  new.  "It 
was,"  M.  Caro  has  said,  "an  epoch  unique  in  the 
free  and  fruitful  variety  of  talents,  in  all  the  noble 
curiosities  that  were  simultaneously  aroused,  and 
all  the  emotions  of  the  beautiful  that  were  simul- 


CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


taneously  felt,  in  the  almost  heroic  activity  of 
mind  which  was  impelled  in  all  ways  to  the 
conquest  of  the  unknown,  and  also  in  the 
open-mindedness  of  the  public,  which  was  then 
enthusiastic  to  the  point  of  self-deception.  Critical 
philosophy  had  not  yet  withered  these  enchanted 
hopes,  nor  desolated  the  new  imagination  of  the 
generations  who  represented  the  century's  youth." 

In  this  great  movement,  the  youth  of  Dijon 
(Dijon  had  always  been  a  literary  city)  could  not 
fail  to  take  its  part.  A  certain  number  of  the 
pupils  of  the  faculty  had  founded  a  society  which 
was  called  "  The  Society  for  Studies."  Almost 
all  these  young  people,  although  holding  liberal 
opinions,  were  Monarchist  and  Catholic. 

11  Lacordaire  had,  on  the  other  hand,  brought 
with  him  from  the  College,  what  almost  all  of  us 
had  brought  from  it,"  says  M.  Lorain,  one  of  his 
fellow-pupils  at  that  time,  "  the  deism  and  re- 
publicanism of  an  undergraduate."  Nevertheless, 
they  opened  their  ranks  to  him,  and,  without 
entirely  converting  him  either  to  their  religious 
faith  or  to  their  political  convictions,  they  certainly 
inclined  his  mind  towards  the  doctrines  and 
opinions  which  he  was  afterwards  to  embrace. 

In  the  meantime  he  wrote  essays  to  be  read  at 
the  Dijon  Society  for  Studies.  Now  it  was  a 
narrative  of  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus  ; 
again,  it  was  a  dialogue  between  Plato  and  his 
disciples  at  Cape  Sunium,  which  ended  with  the 
words  ' '  liberty  is  justice. "  Many  years  afterwards 
his  hearers  remembered  the  unexpected  effect  pro- 
duced on  them  by  the  reading  of  these  pages,  in 
which  they  believed  they  heard  again  something 
of  the  tones  of  Chateaubriand.  His  superiority 
was  especially  manifest  in  their  oratorical  con- 
tests. The  words  came  from  his  lips,  gasping, 
nervous,  hurried,  as  if  they  could  not  follow  the 


LACORDAIRE 


train  of  the  thought,  but  coloured,  dazzling,  and 
rich  in  ideas  and  metaphors.  Some  fragments  of 
these  improvisations  have  been  collected,  and  there 
are  portions  of  them  that  would  not  disfigure  his 
most  famous  discourses.  u  Corrupt  morals  give 
birth  to  corrupting  laws,"  he  exclaimed  on  one 
occasion,  "and  licence  hurls  peoples  into  slavery 
without  giving  them  time  to  utter  a  cry.  Some- 
times they  expire  in  a  miserable  death-struggle 
which  they  love  as  if  it  were  pleasant  and  agree- 
able repose  ;  sometimes  they  perish  in  the  midst 
of  festivals,  singing  hymns  of  victory,  and  calling 
one  another  immortal."  At  the  same  time  he  was 
working  on  his  own  account,  learning  Italian, 
reading  Alfieri,  and,  like  the  Italian  patriot,  secretly 
writing  a  liberal  and  republican  tragedy  in  verse, 
which  was  to  be  entitled  "  Timoleon  "  ;  or  even,  a 
detail  which  Father  Chocarne  has  revealed  to  us, 
making  a  verse  translation  of  Anacreon's  Odes. 

At  the  age  of  twenty,  Lacordaire  had  ended  his 
law  studies.  It  was  necessary  for  him  to  choose  a 
career.  Endowed  as  he  was  for  public  speaking, 
there  could  be  no  hesitation  in  the  matter  for  him 
or  for  his  relatives.  He  chose  the  Bar.  But  to 
his  mother,  Dijon  seemed  too  narrow  a  theatre, 
and,  at  the  price  of  heavy  sacrifices,  she  did  not 
hesitate  to  send  him  to  Paris,  recommending  him, 
through  the  intermediary  of  President  Riambourg, 
to  M.  Guillemin,  an  advocate  in  the  Court  of 
Cassation  and  the  Court  of  Councils,  and  an 
ardent  Catholic  and  Royalist.  M.  Riambourg 
had  written  to  M.  Guillemin  that  it  was  only  a 
matter  of  giving  the  young  man  good  direction. 
M.  Guillemin  understood  this  as  choosing  for  him 
a  confessor  in  Paris,  but,  to  his  astonishment, 
Lacordaire  answered  :  "  Oh  no,  sir,  I  don't  do 
that."  None  the  less,  M.  Guillemin  kept  him  as 
his  secretary.     He  gave  him  documents  to  study 


CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


and  pleadings  to  draw,  and  at  the  same  time  he 
endeavoured  to  procure  him  some  business. 
Lacordaire  made  it  his  duty  to  plunge  into  the 
study  of  law,  as  much  on  grounds  of  conscience 
as  to  relieve  his  mother  of  the  allowance  she  paid 
for  him.  But  he  did  not  do  this  without  some 
regret.  "  Alas  !  "  he  wrote  to  M.  Lorain,  "I  have 
said  farewell  to  literature.  I  have  retained  only 
that  mysterious  correspondence  with  it,  that  secret 
contact,  which  unites  a  man  of  taste  to  all  that  is 
beautiful  in  the  world.  And  yet  I  was  born  to 
live  with  the  Muses.  The  fire  of  imagination  and 
enthusiasm  that  devours  me  has  not  been  given 
me  in  order  that  I  should  extinguish  it  in  the  ice 
of  the  law,  or  stifle  it  beneath  practical  and  arduous 
reflections." 

Law  as  a  science  never  interested  him  more  than 
slightly,  but  he  however  obtained  successes  at  the 
Bar  which  did  not  fail  to  encourage  him.  At  his 
very  first  test  he  had  acquired  a  just  confidence  in 
himself.  "  I  felt,"  he  wrote,  "that  the  Roman 
Senate  would  not  have  made  me  nervous."  One 
day  he  had  occasion  to  plead  before  Berryer, 
who  was  so  struck  by  his  talent  that  he  sent  for  him 
for  an  interview  on  the  day  following,  and  said  to 
him  :  "You  can  place  yourself  in  the  front  rank 
of  the  Bar,  but  you  have  great  dangers  to  avoid, 
among  others  the  abuse  of  your  facility  of  speech." 
President  Seguier's  saying  about  him  is  also 
quoted  :  "  Gentlemen,  he  is  not  a  Patru,  he  is  a 
Bossuet  " ;  but  instinctively  I  have  a  little  distrust 
of  such  sayings.  However  that  may  be,  Lacordaire 
experienced  no  disappointments  in  this  respect, 
and  he  had  already  something  to  satisfy  the  only 
passion  which  he  then  felt,  "a  vague  and  feeble 
torment  for  renown." 

I  have  said  the  only  passion.  Is  that  exact? 
This  is,  in  truth,  a  question  which  it  is  impossible 


8  LACORDAIRE 


not  to  ask  as  often  as  we  look  back  on  the  past  of  a 
being  who  has  lived, and  it  is  one  which  respect  does 
not  forbid  us  to  raise  even  in  the  case  of  a  priest. 
Lacordaire  was  twenty  years  old.  All  those  who 
knew  him  at  this  period  agree  in  describing  him 
to  us  as  very  fascinating  in  appearance,  tall,  slight, 
of  an  elegant  figure,  his  face  paleand  already  ascetic, 
but  lighted  up  by  deep  eyes  fringed  with  long 
lashes.  At  this  age  when  the  torment  of  renown  is 
not,  as  a  rule,  the  only  feeling  which  makes  a  man's 
heart  beat,  did  he  love  and  was  he  loved  ?  We 
have  already  seen  that  he  could  preserve  his  youth 
from  gross  excesses  ;  but  if  he  was  not  dissolute, 
still  did  not  love  ever  penetrate  into  his  soul? 
Father  Gratry  gracefully  tells  us,  in  his  "  Remi- 
niscences," that  for  two  years  he  kept  a  rose  that 
had  been  thrown  him  one  evening  at  a  ball,  and 
that  at  the  time  when  he  resolved  to  devote  his  life 
to  God,  no  sacrifice  cost  him  so  much  as  giving 
up  that  rose,  excising  that  feeling  from  his  heart. 
"  I  felt,"  he  adds,  "  the  chill  of  that  excision  for  a 
long  time."  Was  not  a  rose  also  thrown  in  Lacor- 
daire's  life?  On  this  delicate  point  I  would  not  trust 
completely  to  the  inquiry  made  by  Father  Chocarne, 
nor  even  to  that  of  M.  Foisset,  but  it  is  necessary 
to  have  recourse  to  the  testimony  of  Lacordaire 
himself.  "I  have  loved  men,"  he  wrote,  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  to  one  of  his  young  colleagues 
at  the  Bar,  u  I  have  not  yet  loved  woman,  and  I 
shall  never  love  them  on  their  real  side."  Six 
months  after  having  written  that  letter  he  entered 
the  seminary.  One  of  his  cousins  has  told  us 
how,  during  his  early  holidays,  as  he  was  walking 
with  her  in  the  country,  he  saw  a  branch  of 
honeysuckle  on  the  top  of  a  little  hut.  "  Ah  ! 
cousin,"  he  exclaimed  petulantly,  "  how  I  am 
tempted  to  climb  up  there  and  pluck  that  branch 
and  offer  it  to  you  !     But  it  would  not  be  in  agree- 


CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


ment  with  my  garb. "  If  both  testimonies  were 
not  equally  sincere,  who  would  believe  that  Father 
Gratry  kept  the  rose  for  two  years,  or  that  Father 
Lacordaire  did  not  even  pluck  the  honeysuckle  ? 

If,  by  a  rare  privilege,  Lacordaire's  youth  was 
able  to  escape  from  what  he  himself  calls  "  the 
easy  emotions  of  flesh  and  blood,"  the  first  two 
years  of  his  stay  at  Paris  were  none  the  less  a  pain- 
ful time  during  which  he  was  disquieted  "  beneath 
the  Etna  of  life."  On  one  day  he  would  dream 
of  glory  ;  on  the  next,  he  would  write  to  a  friend  : 
UI  do  not  understand  how  a  man  can  give  him- 
self so  much  trouble  for  that  little  fool.  To 
live  tranquilly  by  one's  own  fireside,  without  pre- 
tensions and  without  noise,  is  sweeter  than  to 
abandon  one's  rest  for  renown,  so  that  she,  in 
return,  may  cover  us  with  a  few  golden  spangles." 
Sometimes  his  restlessness  took  the  form  of  a 
desire  to  see  fresh  countries,  and  the  mere  words, 
"  great  Greece,"  made  him  tremble  and  weep. 
Then,  on  the  contrary,  he  would  persuade  him- 
self that  he  would  never  be  contented  until  he 
owned  a  few  chestnut  trees,  a  field  of  potatoes,  a 
field  of  corn,  and  a  cottage  in  the  depths  of  some 
Swiss  valley.  In  his  lonely  room  in  the  Rue  du 
Dragon,  he  dreamed  of  a  country  parish  ;  hardly 
had  he  crossed  the  Pont  Neuf  than  this  dream 
was  replaced  by  that  of  an  active  and  brilliant  life, 
and  these  incessant  variations  aroused  in  him  a 
disgust  for  an  existence  which  his  imagination  had 
exhausted  in  anticipation.  "I  am  surfeited  with 
everything,"  he  wrote  to  M.  Lorain,  "  without 
having  known  anything." 

He  suffered  alike  from  his  loneliness  and  from 
this  unsatisfied  want  in  his  heart.  At  Paris,  amidst 
eight  hundred  thousand  men,  he  felt  in  a  desert. 
He  sought  human  friendships,  and  these  friend- 
ships eluded  him  or  deceived  him.     "  Where," 


io  LACORDAIRE 

he  exclaimed,  "is  the  soul  that  will  understand 
mine?"  He  no  longer  took  an  interest  in  anything, 
no  longer  had  a  liking  for  anything,  neither  for 
sight-seeing,  nor  for  the  world,  nor  for  the  satis- 
factions of  self-love.  He  felt  his  thought  growing 
old,  and  he  discovered  its  wrinkles  beneath  the 
garlands  with  which  his  imagination  still  covered 
it.  He  began  to  love  his  sadness  and  to  live  a 
great  deal  in  its  company.  But  listen  to  him 
later  on  describing  the  evil  from  which  he  had 
suffered  : 

"  Scarcely  have  eighteen  springs  gladdened  our 
years  than  we  suffer  from  desires  that  have  for 
object  neither  the  flesh,  nor  love,  nor  glory,  nor 
anything  that  has  a  form  or  a  name.  Wandering 
in  the  secrecy  of  solitude  or  in  the  splendid 
thoroughfares  of  famous  towns,  the  young  man 
feels  oppressed  with  aspirations  that  have  no 
aim  ;  he  withdraws  from  the  realities  of  life  as 
from  a  prison  in  which  his  heart  is  stifled,  and 
he  asks  from  everything  that  is  vague  and  un- 
certain, from  the  clouds  of  evening,  from  the 
winds  of  autumn,  from  the  fallen  leaves  of  the 
woods,  for  a  feeling  which  fills  him  while  it 
distresses  him.  But  it  is  in  vain  ;  the  clouds 
pass  away,  the  winds  fall,  the  leaves  fade  and 
wither  without  telling  him  why  he  suffers."  This 
is  the  tone  and  almost  the  language  of  Rene, 
but  of  Rene  become  a  Christian,  for  he  im- 
mediately adds  :  "  'O  my  soul,'"  said  the  prophet, 
14  'why  art  thou  so  heavy?  Hope  in  God.'  It  is 
God,  in  truth,  it  is  the  infinite  who  moves  in  our 
twenty-years-old  hearts  that  have  been  touched  by 
Christ,  but  that  have  strayed  from  Him  through 
inadvertence,  and  in  whom  the  Divine  unction, 
no  longer  producing  its  natural  effect,  none  the 
less  raises  the  waves  which  it  was  destined  to 
appease." 


CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  u 

It  was,  in  truth,  God  who  agitated  his  twenty- 
years-old  heart,  but  it  was  that  very  heart  which 
was  to  help  him  to  find  the  remedy  for  the  ill  from 
which  he  suffered  ;  remedium  animce,  said  the 
pious  workers  of  former  times  who  laboured  on 
the  Gothic  cathedrals.  Lacordaire  reached  faith, 
not  by  a  sudden  illumination  or  a  flash  of  grace, 
as  they  said  in  the  seventeenth  century,  not 
by  philosophical  reasoning  and  the  influence  of 
a  man,  but  by  feeling.  Writing  to  a  friend 
who  had  just  lost  his  father,  he  said  to  him  : 
"  When  I  learned  the  news  I  was  unwell  and  given 
up  to  the  saddest  thoughts  ;  my  heart  was  almost 
overpowered  by  this  blow,  and  I  desired  to  leave 
a  world  whence  all  that  is  good  departs.  My 
melancholy  took  on  a  religious  character,  and 
for  a  moment  I  was  a  Christian."  And  in  another 
letter:  "I  remember  that  on  one  evening  I 
read  the  Gospel  of  Saint  Matthew  and  I  wept. 
When  one  weeps  one  is  very  near  to  belief." 
"I  wept  and  I  believed,"  says  Chateaubriand. 
But  Lacordaire's  conversion,  or  rather  the  return 
of  his  faith  was  destined  to  be  less  rapid  and, 
perhaps  for  that  reason,  more  solid  than  that  of 
the  author  of  "  Les  Martyrs."  One  can  follow 
its  stages  in  the  letters  which  he  wrote  at  the 
time  to  friends  of  his  own  age.  "I  have  an  ex- 
tremely religious  soul  and  a  very  unbelieving 
mind  ;  but  as  it  is  in  the  nature  of  the  mind  to 
allow  itself  to  be  subjugated  by  the  soul,  it  is 
probable  that  some  day  I  shall  be  a  Christian." 
And  some  months  afterwards  to  another :  "  Would 
you  believe  that  I  become  a  Christian  every  day? 
The  progressive  change  which  is  taking  place  in  my 
opinions  is  singular  ;  I  am  a  believer  and  I  have 
never  been  more  of  a  philosopher."  One  of  his 
lawyer  companions  was  astonished  to  encounter 
him  at  the  church  of  Saint  Germain-des-Pres,  on 


i2  LACORDAIRE 

his  knees  before  a  column,  and  with  his  head  in 
his  hands.  At  last  the  day  came  when  Lacordaire 
felt  with  an  invincible  certainty  that  he  was  a 
Christian,  and  he  came  to  his  decision.  By  a 
singular  predestination  he  went  to  that  very  church 
of  Notre-Dame  which  was  destined  to  be  the 
theatre  of  his  fame,  and  it  was  there  that  "  pardon 
descended  on  his  faults,  and  that  on  his  lips, 
fortified  by  age  and  purified  by  repentance,  he 
received  for  the  second  time  the  God  who  had 
visited  him  at  the  dawn  of  his  manhood." 

The  act  which  Lacordaire  had  just  performed 
was  decisive  in  his  life,  for,  owing  to  it,  he  almost 
immediately  determined  on  another  which  was  to 
bind  him  for  ever.  The  desire  of  the  priesthood 
took  possession  of  him  as  a  result  of  his  return 
to  faith,  an  ardent,  unquenchable  desire.  He 
did  not  understand  how  he  could  be  a  Christian 
and  not  become  a  priest.  Only  six  months  passed 
between  his  first  positive  act  of  faith  and  his 
entry  into  the  seminary.  Yet  this  definite  entry 
was  retarded  by  the  resistance  of  his  mother, 
who,  happy  to  see  her  son  a  Christian  again, 
yet  could  not  make  up  her  mind  to  the  sacrifice 
of  his  worldly  hopes.  She  wrote  as  many  as  ten 
letters  to  him  in  order  to  divert  him  from  his  vo- 
cation, which,  on  account  of  this  resistance, 
Lacordaire  had  to  keep  hidden  from  all  his  friends. 
At  last  she  became  resigned,  and  she  authorised 
her  son  to  ask  the  Archbishop  of  Paris  for  an 
exhibition  at  the  Saint-Sulpice  seminary.  "  At 
the  bar  you  defended  causes  of  temporary  interest, 
now  you  are  going  to  defend  One  whose  justice  is 
eternal,"  said  Mgr.  de  Quelen  to  him.  It  re- 
mained to  obtain  from  the  Bishop  of  Dijon  his 
excorporation,  that  is  to  say  an  authorisation  to 
enter  the  seminary  of  a  diocese  other  than  that  in 
which  he  had  been  born.     The  Bishop  required 


CHILDHOOD  AND  YOUTH  13 

no  pressing.  "  What  could  you  expect?"  he  said 
afterwards.  "He  wrote  me  a  letter  that  lacked 
nothing  but  faults  of  spelling.  I  took  him  for 
the  greatest  booby  in  my  diocese."  On  the  13th 
of  May,  1824,  the  twenty-second  anniversary  of 
his  birth,  two  priests  with  whom  he  had  already 
formed  close  relations  which  were  destined  to 
continue,  the  Abbe  Gerbet  and  the  Abbe  de 
Salinis,  took  him  to  the  seminary  of  Issy.  He 
entered  it  very  young,  and,  doubtless  very  in- 
experienced, but  having  already  lived  the  life 
of  his  epoch  in  heart,  mind,  and  imagination.  He 
was  still  a  good  deal  of  a  child,  as  much,  he  has 
himself  said,  in  his  love  of  liberty  as  in  his  under- 
standing of  the  sufferings  and  needs  that  tormented 
him.  Accordingly,  in  order  to  win  himself  a 
hearing,  he  was  later  on  to  find  the  accents  of  a 
son. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE  SEMINARY— FIRST  RELATIONS  WITH 
LAMENNAIS 

"When  one  enters  a  seminary,  above  all  in  the 
country,  one  experiences  a  great  peace.  It  seems 
that  the  world  is  destroyed,  that  wars  and  victories 
have  been  done  with  for  a  long  time,  and  that  the 
heavens,  without  torridness  and  without  thunder, 
encompass  a  new  earth.  Silence  reigns  in  the 
courts,  in  the  gardens,  in  the  populous  corridors 
of  the  cells,  and,  at  the  sound  of  the  bell,  one  sees 
the  inhabitants  pouring  out  in  a  crowd,  like  bees 
from  a  mysterious  hive.  The  serenity  of  their  faces 
matches  the  whiteness  and  cleanliness  of  the  house. 
What  the  soul  experiences  is  a  sort  of  engaging 
intoxication  of  frugality  and  innocence."  And  so 
the  description  goes  on,  Lacordaire  relating  in 
minute  detail,  for  several  pages,  the  inner  life  of 
the  seminary,  the  hour  of  rising  and  that  of  medi- 
tation, the  nature  of  the  religious  exercises,  and 
the  way  in  which  the  periods  of  recreation  were 
spent.  But  one  would  look  in  vain  for  these  pages 
in  the  fullest  editions  of  his  works.  They  have, 
as  it  were,  strayed  into  a  strange  romance,  with  a 
rather  unpleasant  title,  which,  if  the  form  were  a 
little  simpler  and  the  theme  a  little  less  subtle, 
would  none  the  less  remain  one  of  the  psychological 
masterpieces  of  our  time.  When  Sainte-Beuve 
sought  an  ending  for  "Volupte,"  which,  unlike 
the  rest  of  that  book,  was  not  drawn  from  his  own 
experience,  the  idea  occurred  to  him  to  make  his 

14 


THE  SEMINARY  15 

hero  take  Holy  Orders.  In  order  to  be  sure  that 
he  would  paint  accurately  the  customs  and  the 
interior  of  a  seminary,  he  went  to  Lacordaire,  then 
a  young  priest,  whom  he  had  often  met  at  the 
house  of  Lamennais.  Lacordaire  took  him  at 
once  to  the  seminary  of  Issy,  and  afterwards,  just 
as  Sainte-Beuve  was  preparing  to  embody  his 
impressions  in  writing,  he  received  from  Lacordaire 
a  long  letter  which  contained  an  exact  and  minute 
statement  of  the  life  of  the  seminary,  "  a  state- 
ment," says  Sainte-Beuve,  "  marked  by  imagi- 
native turns  such  as  inevitably  flowed  from  his 
pen."  These  are  the  pages  which,  on  his  own 
admission,  Sainte-Beuve  has  simply  introduced 
into  "Volupte,"  adding  to  them,  however,  some 
turns  of  his  own  style  of  that  period,  which  are 
not  always  in  the  best  taste. 

If  this  account  by  Sainte-Beuve  did  not  deserve 
full  credence  in  itself,  one  would  if  necessary  find 
its  confirmation  in  the  similarity  between  this 
chapter  of  "  Volupte  "  and  certain  fragments  of 
Lacordaire's  early  letters,  dated  from  the  seminary. 
Thus  the  description  of  the  Issy  kitchen-garden 
occupies  a  great  deal  of  space  in  "  Volupte."  In 
like  fashion  Lacordaire  says  in  one  of  his  letters  : 
"  In  the  morning  I  walk  in  the  cool,  and  I  amuse 
myself  by  watching  the  progress  of  the  fruits  which 
I  have  already  seen  the  evening  before  and  which 
I  see  again  the  day  following.  The  cherries  no 
longer  show  me  their  red  heads  amidst  the  verdure 
of  their  leaves  ;  it  is  now  the  turn  of  the  prunes, 
of  the  apricots,  and  of  the  peaches,  which  are 
beginning  to  clothe  themselves  with  a  light  tint. 
Above  all  I  like  the  kitchen-garden,  and  the  sight 
of  an  ordinary  lettuce  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me. 
I  see  them,  quite  small,  and  ranged  in  a  quincunx 
in  a  manner  agreeable  to  the  eye.  They  grow  ; 
their  long,   green  leaves  are  drawn  together  by 


16  LACORDAIRE 

tying  them  with  straws  ;  they  become  yellow,  and 
at  the  end  of  some  days  there  is  for  them  neither 
dew  nor  sunshine." 

We  may,  however,  imagine  that  all  his  letters 
to  his  two  friends  of  this  period,  Lorain  and 
Foisset,  were  not  filled  with  descriptions  of  this 
nature.  It  was,  above  all,  of  his  inner  feelings 
that  he  spoke.  "  You  do  not  know,  my  dear 
friend,"  he  wrote  to  the  former,  who  did  not  then 
share  his  beliefs,  "how  pleasant  my  solitude  is. 
You  do  not,  doubtless,  suspect  me  of  wishing  to 
deceive  you,  and  of  telling  you  of  a  happiness 
which  I  do  not  really  enjoy.  It  is  only  in  the 
world  that  we  smile  with  our  lips  while  there  are 
tears  in  our  hearts.  Well,  then,  my  sad  and 
solemn  disposition  has  vanished  before  the  peace 
of  this  house,  and  I  only  perceived  that  I  had 
become  gay  because  everybody  told  me  so.  That 
is  a  three  years'  store  of  happiness."  And  in  a 
letter  to  M.  Foisset  he  writes  in  the  same  strain  : 
"My  friend,  I  have  nothing  to  tell  you  about 
myself;  I  am  what  you  have  seen  me.  I  feel 
more  and  more  that  I  am  in  my  place,  and  that 
God  wished  me  here ;  I  hope,  with  His  help,  to 
make  a  good  priest  some  day,  and  to  work  success- 
fully for  the  salvation  of  souls.  My  friend,  know- 
ledge, talent,  strength,  all  are  vain  in  themselves 
when  one  does  not  apply  them  to  eternal  things. 
Time,  and  what  is  in  time,  have  only  been  given 
us  in  order  to  conquer  eternity." 

The  feeling  of  peace  and  contentment  which  he 
experienced  found  expression  sometimes  even  in 
effusions  of  mysticism  and  sensibility.  "One 
evening,"  he  wrote,  "  I  was  at  a  window  looking 
at  the  moon  whose  rays  fell  gently  on  the  house  ; 
a  single  star  was  beginning  to  shine  in  the  sky  at 
a  height  that  seemed  to  me  incredible.  I  do  not 
know  why  I  came  to  compare  the  littleness  and 


THE  SEMINARY  17 

poverty  of  our  own  habitation  with  the  immensity 
of  that  vault ;  and  whilst  I  was  thinking  that  there 
are  in  these  few  cells  a  small  number  of  servants 
of  the  God  Who  has  made  these  marvels,  and 
that  those  servants  are  regarded  as  madmen  by 
the  rest  of  mankind,  I  wanted  to  weep  for  this  poor 
world  which  cannot  even  look  above  its  head." 
Lacordaire  had  always  a  liking  for  thus  looking 
above  his  head.  Many  years  afterwards  he 
wrote  :  "  God  has  made  the  stars  in  order  to  make 
us  dislike  the  earth." 

However,  this  period  of  peace  and  enchantment 
was  not  to  last  always.  Lacordaire  was  not  long 
before  he  encountered  a  trial  which  he  was  destined 
to  meet  with  down  to  his  life's  end — the  distrust 
of  his  ecclesiastical  superiors.  Though  having  pro- 
found faith,  sincere  piety,  and  an  ardent  vocation, 
his  demeanour  was  the  least  seminarist  that  ever 
existed.  He  was  petulant  and  vehement,  with  a 
licence  of  language  which  he  sometimes  pushed  to 
impertinence.  He  seemed  to  his  masters  like  a 
spirited  horse,  and  none  of  them  felt  that  he  had 
strength  enough  to  bridle  him.  His  inconsiderate 
humour  found  expression,  to  their  despair,  in  the 
most  varied  ways.  He  vehemently  took  up  the  cause 
of  the  new  cap,  shaped  like  a  cardinal's,  against 
the  old  square  cap  which  had  been  worn  by  the 
theological  students,  and  which,  though  still  dear 
to  the  professors,  had  already  been  partially  aban- 
doned by  the  pupils,  and  he  carried  his  opposition 
to  such  a  length  that  with  his  own  hands  he  threw 
into  the  fire  the  square  caps  of  his  companions. 
A  graver  matter  was  that  in  the  theological  course 
he  took  it  upon  himself  to  speak,  raised  questions 
or  objections,  and,  when  the  answer  did  not  appear 
to  him  to  be  satisfactory,  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
reply,  sometimes  leaving  the  professors  over- 
whelmed by  his  retort,  and  the  seminarists  un- 
c 


1 8  LACORDAIRE 

certain  which  of  the  two,  professor  or  pupil,  was 
right  or  wrong.  The  Sulpicians,  his  masters  at 
that  time,  were  pious  and  judicious,  but  a  little 
timid.  ' '  They  had  a  horror  of  two  things, "  Father 
Chocarne  has  said,  " noise  and  novelty."  Accord- 
ingly, this  young  seminarist,  so  independent  in 
demeanour  and  so  bold  in  speech,  could  not  help 
disturbing  them.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  was 
suspected  by  his  masters,  he  gained  repute  among 
his  companions,  who  were  better  able  to  perceive 
his  genius  than  were  the  learned  Sulpicians. 

It  was,  and  I  believe  it  still  is,  the  custom  at 
Issy  for  the  seminarists  to  preach  in  turn  in  the 
refectory  at  meal-times.  It  was  thus  in  far  from 
favourable  circumstances  that  Lacordaire  preached 
his  first  sermon.  He  himself,  in  a  letter  to  M. 
Lorain,  described  the  impression  he  felt  when  he 
mounted  the  terrible  stairs  that  led  to  the  pulpit, 
and  amidst  the  noise  of  plates,  of  spoons,  and  of 
the  whole  attendance  at  the  meal,  began  to  preach 
on  the  Incarnation,  in  a  refectory  where  a  hundred 
and  thirty  persons  were  eating.  But  soon  the 
young  seminarists  began  nudging  one  another 
with  their  elbows  ;  knives  and  forks  stopped  of 
themselves,  and  everybody  gave  an  attentive  ear 
to  the  tones  of  a  voice  which,  at  first  sober  and 
muffled,  rose  little  by  little  until  it  made  the 
humble  hall  resound  with  echoes  hitherto  unknown 
to  it.  A  fragment  of  that  sermon,  transcribed  by 
Lacordaire  for  a  friend,  has  been  included  in  the 
collection  of  his  works,  and  cuts  a  good  figure 
there.  On  the  next  day  all  the  seminarists  were 
enthusiastic.  But  the  masters  were  less  pleased. 
The  professor  of  eloquence  addressed  some  obser- 
vations to  Lacordaire.  He  blamed  the  mould  in 
which  the  sermon  was  cast,  and  urged  the  pupils — 
in  this,  indeed,  he  was  not  very  wrong — not  to 
imitate  it, 


THE  SEMINARY  19 

Thus  the  prejudices  that  Lacordaire  had  aroused 
shortly  after  his  entrance  into  the  seminary  grew 
worse.  By  command  of  the  authorities  he  was 
transferred  to  Saint-Sulpice  in  Paris,  and  the 
Superior-General,  the  Abbe  Gamier,  wanted  to  be 
his  confessor.  An  attempt  was  made  to  utilise 
his  talent  by  making  him  a  lecturer  and  a  catechist. 
But,  although  more  restrained  in  his  demeanour 
and  more  measured  in  his  language  than  he  had 
been  at  Issy,  Lacordaire  did  not  altogether  succeed 
in  removing  the  distrust  of  his  superiors.  They 
doubted  his  vocation,  and  kept  putting  off  from 
term  to  term  the  moment  when  he  should  be 
called  upon  to  take  his  early  vows.  Two  years 
and  a  half  had  passed,  and  even  the  sub-diaconate 
had  not  been  conferred  upon  him.  He  had  reason 
to  believe  that  he  was  rejected.  At  that  time  he 
very  nearly  took  a  definite  resolution  to  leave  the 
seminary,  not  to  resume  secular  life,  but  to  enter 
the  novitiate  of  the  Jesuits  at  Montrouge.  Through 
the  intervention  of  the  Abbe  de  Rohan,  he  even 
requested  the  necessary  authorisation  from  the 
Archbishop  of  Paris.  But  Mgr.  de  Quelen  refused 
this.  He  had  a  juster  instinct  of  the  high  value 
of  the  young  seminarist  than  his  own  masters  had, 
and  he  did  not  want  his  diocese  to  lose  a  priest 
whose  future  seemed  to  him  to  be  full  of  promise. 
Perhaps  he  had  even  something  to  do  with  the 
resolution  to  admit  Lacordaire  into  Holy  Orders, 
upon  which  the  Sulpicians  decided  a  short  time 
afterwards.  On  December  2nd,  1826,  he  received 
the  sub-diaconate,  and  on  September  22nd,  1827, 
he  was  ordained  by  Mgr.  de  Quelen's  own  hands 
in  his  private  chapel.  "  What  I  wanted  to  do  is 
done,"  he  wrote  to  Lorain  ;  "  I  have  been  a  priest 
for  the  past  three  days,  sacerdos  in  ceterntim, 
secundum  or  din  em  Melchisedec" 

Lacordaire  had  hardly  left  the  seminary  when 


2o  LACORDAIRE 

he  had  to  make  up  his  mind  regarding  a  brilliant 
proposal  that  was  made  to  him.  One  of  the 
directors  of  Saint-Sulpice,  M.  Boyer,  wished  to 
nominate  him  to  his  relative,  Mgr.  Frayssinous, 
for  the  position  of  ecclesiastical  judge  of  the  Rota. 
Ecclesiastical  dignities  and  perhaps  even  the  purple 
would  have  certainly  been  his  after  a  short  interval. 
Yet  Lacordaire  refused.  "I  want  to  remain 
an  ordinary  priest,"  he  replied  to  M.  Boyer,  and 
"probably  some  day  I  shall  be  a  monk."  But  in 
the  meantime  what  was  he  to  do  ?  Mgr.  de  Quelen, 
who,  all  through  the  period  of  his  relations  with 
Lacordaire,  was  in  turn  to  uphold  him  out  of 
personal  sympathy  and  to  abandon  him  out  of 
timidity  of  mind,  seemed  for  the  moment  rather 
embarrassed  by  his  favourite.  He  found  nothing 
better  to  do  for  this  young  priest  of  twenty-five 
than  to  bury  him  in  a  convent  of  the  Visitandines, 
to  which  he  appointed  him  chaplain.  The  convent 
was  also  a  boarding-school,  and  his  chief  occupa- 
tion was  to  teach  the  catechism  to  some  thirty  young 
girls  of  from  twelve  to  eighteen  years  of  age. 
Let  me  say  at  once,  to  the  honour  of  these  young 
catechumens,  that  the  extraordinary  worth  of  their 
catechist  did  not  escape  them.  For  many  years 
it  was  the  glory  of  the  boarding-school  of  the 
Visitandines  to  preserve  Lacordaire's  instructions 
and  sermons  in  copy-books  that  had  been  written 
out  by  his  first  pupils,  and  which  were  transmitted 
from  generation  to  generation.  The  good  nuns, 
however,  reproached  him  for  dealing  too  much  in 
metaphysics. 

The  following  year  he  was  appointed  assistant 
almoner  of  the  Lyc£e  Henry  IV.  In  this  capacity 
he  was  entrusted  by  the  other  almoners,  his 
colleagues,  with  the  task  of  drawing  up  a  memo- 
randum on  the  religious  and  moral  state  of  the 
Royal  Colleges  of  Paris,  a  memorandum  which 


Lacordaire,  aged  thirty-five 

From  a  drawing  by  Des  Robert 


To  face  p.  20 


THE  SEMINARY  21 

was  intended  for  the  eyes  of  the  Minister  of 
Ecclesiatical  Affairs  and  of  Public  Instruction. 
That  memorandum  is  a  long  lamentation  over  the 
spirit  of  irreligion  that  reigned  in  the  colleges, 
and  the  powerlessness  of  the  almoner  to  remedy 
it.  He  did  not  find  scope  to  spread  the  fire  of 
proselytism  that  was  in  him  among  the  pupils 
of  the  Lycee  Henry  IV.  any  more  than  among  the 
schoolgirls  of  the  Visitandines.  Neither  his  time 
nor  his  faculties  seemed  to  him  to  be  properly 
employed.  Vainly,  with  the  thought  of  writing 
a  great  work  on  apologetics,  he  devoted  himself 
to  a  course  of  reading  in  which  he  intermingled 
Plato  and  Descartes,  Aristotle  and  Saint  Augus- 
tine. Although  he  was  impressed  by  the  matters 
and  mysteries  to  be  developed  in  the  Catholic 
religion,  although  he  never  took  up  a  book  with- 
out being  amazed  at  the  manner  in  which  it  was 
defended,  he  vaguely  felt  that  his  mind  was  little 
suited  to  theology.  However,  he  did  not  desire 
to  seek  elsewhere  than  in  the  exercise  of  his 
ministry  for  the  employment  of  the  faculties 
that  he  felt  within  him.  Thus,  when  M.  Foisset 
suggested  to  him  that  he  should  contribute  to  a 
journal  recently  founded  at  Dijon,  the  "  Provincial," 
he  answered  with  animation  :  "  A  journal  seems  to 
me  an  iniquitous  thing  ;  it  is  the  pulpit  of  opinions, 
that  is  to  say  the  thing  I  despise  most.  A  minister 
of  the  sole  perpetual  and  universal  truths,  never, 
never  shall  I  proclaim  opinions  to  men,  never 
shall  I  proclaim  the  truth  to  them  from  the  same 
place  in  which  their  idleness  is  amused  by 
the  tricks  of  the  intelligence."  Sometimes  he 
imagined  that  obscurity,  a  prolonged  obscurity, 
insignificant  positions,  and  leisure  were  all  he  de- 
sired. But  in  reality,  in  his  dungeon  in  the  Lycee 
Henry  IV.,  where  his  mother  had  come  to  live 
with  him,  as  formerly  in  his  little  lonely  room  in 


22  LACORDAIRE 

the  Rue  du  Dragon,  he  was  restless  about  his 
fate,  and  sometimes  melancholy  seemed  on  the 
point  of  attacking  him.  "  I  can  no  longer  either 
write  or  talk,"  he  wrote  to  M.  Foisset.  "I  metem- 
psychose  myself  every  day,  and  soon  I  shall  only 
recognise  myself  by  my  attachment  to  you.  Mad- 
ness of  the  years  !  Vision  of  immobility!  Without 
friendships  we  would  be  only  a  dream  ;  it  at  least 
arrests  life  at  one  end.  And  yet  how  does  it 
arrest  it?  We  meet  in  spring,  when  we  are  in  our 
blossoming  time,  when  we  perfume  ourselves  with 
youth,  when  we  say,  '  Always.'  After  that  the 
wind  carries  us  off ;  there  is  a  horse  ready  to 
hasten,  a  boat  that  cares  not  for  long  farewells. 
There  is  a  Providence  that  avenges  itself  on  the 
promises  that  men  make  to  each  other,  and 
that,  in  its  own  designs,  scatters  them  to  the  four 
winds." 

To  these  grounds  for  inward  sadness  were  joined 
the  sufferings  caused  by  his  moral  isolation,  and  the 
scant  sympathy  he  felt  to  exist  between  his  col- 
leagues in  the  priesthood  and  himself.  His  mother 
was  grieved  at  seeing  that  he  had  no  friends,  and 
he  himself  explains  to  us  why  he  could  not  have 
any.  "  I  had  remained  a  Liberal  when  I  became  a 
Catholic,  and  I  had  not  been  able  to  hide  all 
that  separated  me  in  this  respect  from  the  clergy 
and  Catholics  of  my  time.  I  felt  myself  alone  in 
these  convictions,  or  at  least  I  met  no  mind  that 
shared  them.  The  end  of  the  Restoration  was 
drawing  near  ;  the  cause  of  Christianity,  bound 
up  with  that  of  the  Bourbons,  was  exposed  to  the 
same  hazards  as  they  were,  and  a  priest  who  was 
not  under  the  Bourbon  flag  seemed  an  enigma 
to  the  more  moderate,  and  a  sort  of  traitor  to 
the  more  ardent."  At  that  epoch,  the  Church 
of  France,  in  truth,  wa,s  abandoning  herself  to 
a   species  of    torpor    and    enervation.      Happy, 


THE  SEMINARY  23 

after  so  many  trials,  at  having  found  a  Govern- 
ment which  was  favourable  to  her,  even  if  it 
refused  her  certain  liberties,  more  confident  than 
she  ought  to  have  been  of  that  protection,  and 
relying  with  too  much  security  upon  that  alliance, 
the  French  clergy,  pious,  honest,  and  respectable 
as  they  were,  contented  themselves  with  the 
regular  discharge  of  the  duties  of  their  daily 
ministry,  but  held  aloof  from  the  great  movement 
of  ideas  which  was  stirring  the  new  generation. 
Lacordaire  felt  this  mistake  and  this  danger. 
11  I  am  weary  of  thinking  and  speaking,"  he 
wrote  to  M.  Foisset.  "I  am  like  the  theological 
faculty  of  the  Paris  University  ;  I  have  hung  up  my 
harp  on  the  willows  of  the  Sorbonne.  How  is 
one  to  think  when  Catholic  thought  no  longer 
exists  ?  How  is  one  to  speak  when  all  Israel  sleeps, 
and  one  has  not,  like  David,  carried  off  the 
enemy's  spear?  No  indeed,  it  is  not  possible. 
Let  the  Shepherd  sleep  to  the  murmur  of  the 
wind,  and  do  not  ask  him  what  he  sees  in  his 
sleep." 

Nor  when  the  clergy,  rising  out  of  this  sleep, 
made  some  apostolical  effort,  was  Lacordaire 
pleased  with  the  form  which  those  manifesta- 
tions took.  He  had  small  belief  in  the  success  of 
what  were  then  called  "  missions,"  and  later  on  he 
spoke  in  rather  severe  terms  of  "those  clouds  of 
missionaries  who  hurl  themselves  from  North  to 
South  through  the  chief  towns  of  the  kingdom, 
summoning  the  people  to  strange  ceremonies 
unknown  to  Catholic  tradition,  to  hymns  that 
express  the  hopes  of  profane  politics  as  well  as 
those  of  eternity,  to  sermons  that  make  up  for 
weakness  of  doctrine  by  excess  of  sentiment, 
in  which  less  appeal  is  made  to  the  heart  than 
to  the  imagination,  at  the  risk  of  producing 
a   mere  passing  disturbance  instead    of  a  solid 


24  LACORDAIRE 

conversion."  Thus,  neither  in  the  daily  practice 
of  his  humble  ministry  as  chaplain  and  almoner, 
nor  in  the  theological  labours  to  which  he  believed 
himself  but  ill  adapted,  nor  in  the  exercise  of  an 
apostolate  whose  form  did  not  please  him,  did 
Lacordaire  find  employment  for  the  gifts  which  he 
felt  fermenting  within  him.  In  this  moral  crisis  it 
is  not  surprising  that  he  cast  his  looks  outside 
France,  and  thought  for  a  moment  of  going 
into  exile. 

There  was  then  a  country  which  from  afar 
exercised  a  sort  of  fascination  upon  those  whose 
imaginations  were  more  curious  about  the  secrets 
of  the  future  than  the  memories  of  the  past.  That 
country  was  America.  Formerly  Chateaubriand 
had  borrowed  from  its  forests  and  savannahs  the 
metaphors  and  images  with  which  he  was  to  em- 
bellish the  "  Genie  du  Christianisme."  In  a  very 
few  years  Tocqueville  was  to  go  to  this  same 
country  to  search  for  the  solution  of  the  democratic 
problem,  and  he  drew  a  portrait  of  this  rising 
republic,  painted  by  a  master's  hand,  but  too 
flattering  to  be  perfectly  correct.  Lacordaire 
almost  anticipated  him.  "  I  was  weary  of  the  life 
I  led,"  he  said  afterwards,  "  and  I  looked  far  off  to 
see  if  there  was  not  on  the  earth  some  place  where 
a  priest  could  live  in  freedom.  Who  has  not 
turned  his  eyes  towards  Washington's  Republic 
in  those  moments  when  one's  own  country  wearies 
us?  Who  has  not  seated  himself  in  thought 
beneath  the  shade  of  the  woods  and  forests  of 
America?  I  turned  my  eyes  thither,  weary  of 
the  spectacle  they  beheld  in  France,  and  I  re- 
solved to  go  there  and  seek  a  hospitality  that  has 
never  been  refused  either  to  a  priest  or  to  a 
traveller." 

The  project  to  which  he  alluded  had  not  been 
for  Lacordaire  merely  a  vague  and  poetical  design. 


THE  SEMINARY  25 

The  Bishop  of  New  York,  Mgr.  Dubois,  was  then 
in  Europe.  He  was  looking  for  a  distinguished 
priest  whom  he  could  take  back  with  him  to  his 
diocese.  Lacordaire  was  mentioned  to  him,  and 
he  offered  him  the  double  position  of  Vicar-General 
of  New  York  and  Superior  of  the  seminary.  At 
first  the  offer  did  not  attract  him  much,  for  what 
he  knew  of  American  customs  did  not  greatly 
please  him.  But  six  months  of  reflection  had 
little  by  little  reconciled  him  to  this  prospect. 

Among  the  questions  which  at  this  time  pre- 
occupied his  anxious  spirit,  there  was  one  which 
dominated  all  the  rest,  and  which  he  put  to  him- 
self in  this  way:  "  The  world  being  what  it  is, 
what  ought  a  priest  to  believe  in  regard  to  the  re- 
lations of  religion  with  philosophy  and  the  social 
order?"  In  philosophy  it  seemed  to  him  impos- 
sible that  there  could  be  variance  between  the 
universal  reason  and  the  Catholic  reason,  and  this 
first  problem  did  not  disturb  him.  It  was  not  so 
with  the  second,  that  of  the  relations  of  the 
spiritual  society  with  the  material  society.  In  his 
view  this  problem  could  only  be  solved  in  three 
ways  :  "  By  the  superiority  of  one  over  the  other, 
by  the  absolute  independence  of  both,  or  by  the 
variable  interpenetration  of  each  by  the  other 
through  reciprocal  concessions."  The  first  means 
seemed  to  him  to  be  in  theory  the  true  method  ;  it 
was  the  system  under  which  the  world  had  lived 
since  Charlemagne ;  but  in  France  this  system 
was  irreparably  ruined,  and  it  seemed  to  him  im- 
possible to  restore  it.  As  for  the  last,  Lacordaire 
rejected  it  with  all  his  might  as  resulting  in  the 
subordination  of  the  Church  to  the  State,  and 
ultimately  in  the  creation  of  a  national  Church  : 
it  was  Gallicanism,  and  Lacordaire  had  a  horror 
of  Gallicanism,  for  in  his  eyes  its  liberties  did  not 
compensate  for  its  servitude.     There  remained  the 


26  LACORDAIRE 

second,  that  is  to  say  absolute  independence. 
This,  doubtless,  was  only  a  remedy,  but  a  sublime 
remedy,  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  adopt  it.  "  To 
remove  the  Church  from  the  state  of  interpenetra- 
tion,  in  order  to  put  her  in  a  state  of  absolute 
independence,  in  a  word  to  free  her,  that  is  what 
has  to  be  done,"  he  wrote  to  M.  Foisset ;  "the 
rest  is  but  a  mass  of  detail." 

When  he  had  reached  this  conviction,  America 
no  longer  alarmed  him.  The  United  States  was 
the  only  country  in  the  world  where  the  Catholic 
Church  had  no  official  relation  with  the  State,  and 
under  that  system  she  had  strengthened  herself 
with  a  rapidity  which  was  of  the  nature  of  a 
prodigy.  How  could  he  not  be  tempted  to  go 
and  study  the  application  of  the  remedy  on  the 
spot?  Lacordaire  determined  then  to  do  this, 
but  before  giving  Mgr.  Dubois  a  definite  answer, 
he  wished  to  discuss  all  these  questions  with  the 
only  priest  who  had  hitherto  seemed  to  care  about 
them,  and  under  whose  humble  roof  Catholic 
thought  seemed  to  have  taken  refuge.  One  even- 
ing in  May,  1830,  preceded  by  a  letter  announcing 
his  arrival,  Lacordaire  knocked  at  the  door  of  La 
Chesnaye. 

The  man  who  lived  in  that  old  manor  house, 
situated  in  front  of  a  foggy  pond  whose  grey 
waters  reflected  the  long  branches  of  oaks  and 
beeches,  did  not  hold  any  rank  or  dignity  in  the 
Church.  And  yet  he  exercised  more  influence 
and  possessed  more  authority  over  the  younger 
clergy  than  did  bishops  and  cardinals.  His  con- 
temporaries were  more  attentive  to  his  words  than 
to  those  which  came  from  the  pulpits,  and,  in  the 
religious  domain,  he  had  taken  possession  of  their 
imagination  as  well  as  of  their  thought.  To-day, 
when  nearly  sixty  years  have  passed  since  the 
death  of  Lamennais,  he  still  awakens  our  curiosity, 


THE  SEMINARY  27 

and  nothing  that  relates  to  him  leaves  us  in- 
different. We  read  with  almost  equal  interest 
every  appreciation  of  him,  whatever  be  the  differ- 
ences of  their  points  of  view  and  of  their  con- 
clusions. The  publication  of  his  correspondence 
was  received  some  years  ago  with  marked 
favour.  When,  in  a  short  time  as  we  are  led 
to  hope,  certain  letters  are  made  public,  all  of 
them  occupied  with  matters  of  spiritual  direction, 
written  by  him  to  a  pious  lady,  those  letters,  I  am 
certain,  will  be  read  with  the  keenest  curiosity. 
The  fact  is  that  the  figure  of  Lamennais,  studied 
and  investigated  as  it  has  been,  still  stands  before 
us  like  that  of  a  Sphinx  who  has  not  said  her  last 
word.  We  feel,  however  conscientious  our  study 
has  been,  that  we  only  half  understand  him.  We 
find  a  difficulty  in  bringing  what  we  read  of  him 
and  what  we  know  into  harmony  and  agree- 
ment. 

This  priest  was  a  pamphleteer  of  genius ;  no 
one  has  carried  as  far  as  he  did  the  art  of  diatribe 
and  insult ;  his  eloquence  is  full  of  hatred  and 
invective.  But  he  has  lovingly  written  a  transla- 
tion of  the  "  Imitation  "  which  is  worthy  of  the 
original,  and  he  has  enriched  it  with  reflections  of 
which  M.  de  Sacy,  a  good  judge,  could  say  that 
sometimes  they  seem  to  be  postscripts  dictated  by 
the  author  of  the  book  himself.  In  his  letters 
there  are  few  pages  on  which  there  is  not  found 
some  insult,  aimed,  not  merely  against  his  direct 
opponents,  but  especially  against  those  who  did 
not  entirely  share  every  shade  of  his  own  opinions. 
The  most  respectable  of  his  opponents  are  those 
most  abused  and  in  the  grossest  terms,  and  it  is 
impossible  not  to  conclude  that  this  perpetual 
reviler  must  have  been  a  singularly  bilious  and 
disagreeable  man.  But  it  is  equally  impossible 
not  to  be  touched  by  the  care,  the  good  grace,  the 


28  LACORDAIRE 

true  sensibility  he  displays  in  his  correspondence 
with  those  three  Breton  old  maiden  ladies,  who, 
from  their  retreat  of  Feuillantines,  follow  his  career 
with  so  touching  an  anxiety,  and  one  of  whom, 
she  whom  he  loved  to  call  Ninette,  once  addressed 
to  him  this  discreet  warning:  "  You  are  making 
too  much  noise."  Nothing  is  farther  from  his 
writings  than  grace  and  charm,  except  in  some 
pages  of  "  Affaires  de  Rome."  And  yet  he  had 
grace,  he  had  charm  ;  all  who  were  near  him  felt 
their  influence.  In  that  Breton  Port-Royal  which 
he  wished  to  create  at  La  Chesnaye,  he  had  been 
able  to  attract  and  to  retain  pure  and  refined  souls 
like  those  of  the  Abbe  Gerbet  and  Maurice  de 
Guerin,  to  mention  only  the  best  known.  He 
had  captivated  the  spirit  of  Montalembert  to  such 
a  degree  as  to  make  him  hesitate  for  two  years 
before  he  made  his  submission.  Women's  hearts 
remained  faithful  to  him,  even  after  his  fall.  I 
knew,  towards  the  end  of  her  life,  a  worthy  nun 
in  whose  presence  one  could  not  mention  the  name 
of  Lamennais  without  moving  her,  and  she  per- 
sisted in  the  touching  illusion  that,  if  he  had  not 
been  imposed  upon  in  his  last  hours,  he  would 
have  died  reconciled  with  the  Church.  Whatever 
judgment  one  passes  on  the  rest  of  his  life,  it  is 
impossible  to  refuse  pity  to  those  last  years  when, 
overwhelmed  at  once  by  the  weight  of  material 
preoccupations  and  bodily  sufferings,  deriving, 
by  a  singular  lesson,  his  whole  subsistence  from 
the  sale  of  his  translation  of  the  "  Imitation,"  he 
was  growing  old  in  illness  and  solitude,  without 
affection  and  without  support,  assuredly  feeling  in 
the  depths  of  his  being  the  wretchedness  and  humili- 
ation of  his  end.  It  is  said  that  the  man  who  closed 
his  eyes  wiped  from  his  wasted  cheek  a  tear  which, 
while  he  was  dying,  no  one  had  seen  fall.  Who 
knows  whether  that  tear  was  not  one  of  repentance, 


THE  SEMINARY  29 

and  whether  the  good  sister  whom  I  have  just  men- 
tioned was  not  wiser  in  her  charitable  hope  than 
certain  judges  of  Lamennais  in  their  pitiless 
severity  ? 

When  Lacordaire  arrived  at  La  Chesnaye, 
Lamennais  was  not  unknown  to  him.  Lacordaire 
had  already  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  him  once 
or  twice  before  he  entered  the  seminary,  and, 
judging  from  this  letter  to  a  friend,  his  first  im- 
pression had  not  been  favourable.  "  He  is  a  little, 
dried-up  man,  with  a  thin,  yellow  face,  simple  in 
his  manner,  sharp  in  speech,  full  of  his  book.  If 
M.  de  Lamennais  were  placed  in  an  assembly  of 
ecclesiastics,  with  his  brown  frock-coat,  his  knee- 
breeches,  and  his  black  silk  stockings,  he  would  be 
taken  for  the  sacristan  of  the  church."  From  this 
fresh  visit  to  La  Chesnaye,  Lacordaire  did  not  re- 
turn particularly  attracted.  ' i  The  conversation  and 
deportment,"  he  wrote  afterwards,  "  breathed  a 
sort  of  idolatry  that  I  had  never  seen  before.  This 
visit,  though  giving  me  more  than  one  surprise, 
did  not,  however,  break  the  bond  which  had  just 
attached  me  to  the  famous  writer."  In  fact  the 
counsels  of  Lamennais  strengthened  him  in  his 
project  of  going  to  America,  a  project  which 
Lamennais  approved  of  all  the  more  warmly  as 
he  himself  had  conceived  a  similar  design  several 
years  before.  Lacordaire  therefore  made  up  his 
mind,  and  some  months  later  he  wrote  to  M. 
Foisset  :  "I  have  thought  again  about  the  New 
York  proposal.  M.  de  Lamennais  knows  it  and 
has  approved  of  it.  We  have  joined  on  to  it  great 
designs,  and  several  of  us  who  are  friends  will 
start  together  next  spring."  This  letter  is  dated 
July  19th,  1830.  Eleven  days  afterwards  the 
Revolution  broke  out. 

At  first  the  new  events  changed  nothing  in 
Lacordaire's  determination.      His    baggage   was 


3o  LACORDAIRE 

packed  and  he  had  said  farewell  to  his  family, 
when  he  received  a  letter  from  the  Abbe  Gerbet 
with  whom  he  had  kept  in  touch.  In  this  letter 
the  Abbe  Gerbet  insistently  pressed  him,  in  his 
own  name  and  in  that  of  Lamennais,  to  aid 
in  the  enterprise  of  founding  a  new  journal,  the 
4<  Avenir,"  which  would  in  future  be  the  organ  of 
the  Catholics,  and  which  would  claim  for  the 
Church  her  share  in  the  liberties  henceforth  ac- 
quired for  the  country.  "  This  news,"  Lacordaire 
afterwards  wrote,  "caused  me  obvious  joy  and  a 
sort  of  elation."  He  accepted  the  proposition 
without  hesitation,  and  forgot  that  some  months 
previously  he  had  replied  to  a  similar  proposition 
from  his  friend  Foisset,  that  a  journal  was  what  he 
despised  most  in  the  world,  and  that  never  would 
he  proclaim  the  truth  to  men  in  a  place  in  which 
their  idleness  was  amused  by  tricks  of  the  intelli- 
gence. In  order  to  understand  this  sudden  change 
of  ideas  and  this  elation,  we  must  recall  the  con- 
ception Lacordaire  had  formed  of  the  relations 
between  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  State.  To 
remove  the  Church  from  her  state  of  penetration, 
to  put  her  in  a  state  of  absolute  independence, 
seemed  to  him,  as  we  have  seen,  the  most  pressing 
task,  and  it  was  at  the  moment  when  he  was  going 
to  start  for  America  with  the  design  of  studying 
this  sublime  remedy  on  the  spot  that  he  had  a 
glimpse  of  the  possibility  of  applying  it  in  France. 
The  man  who,  from  the  depth  of  his  modest  retreat 
of  La  Chesnaye,  stirred  the  Catholic  intelligences 
of  France  and  of  Europe,  offered  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  becoming  his  fellow-labourer  in  the  great 
cause  of  the  freeing  of  the  Church.  He  invited 
him  to  fight  the  good  fight  with  him,  and  at  the 
same  time  he  placed  the  weapon  in  his  hand. 
How  could  he  refuse  to  answer  this  call,  and  how 
could  he  hesitate  to  throw  himself  into  the  conflict 


THE  SEMINARY  31 

under  such  a  chief?  This  is  what  Lacordaire  did, 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  let  loose  in  that 
campaign  all  the  fire  of  an  ardent  nature  which, 
since  his  departure  from  the  seminary,  he  had  had 
to  restrain  within  the  limits  of  a  narrow  and  petty 
existence. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE  "AVENIR" 

Setting  aside  their  social  and  theological  doc- 
trines, everybody  knows  what  was,  in  practice,  the 
object  pursued  by  the  writers  of  the  "  Avenir  " 
— to  give  Catholics  a  desire  for  liberty ;  to  per- 
suade them  to  invoke  no  longer  the  protection 
of  the  State,  definitely  to  renounce  its  favours  and 
privileges,  and  henceforth  only  to  count  upon 
themselves  for  the  defence  of  their  rights  ;  but 
to  teach  them  at  the  same  time  how  to  use  the 
weapons  by  which  those  rights  are  defended  in 
free  countries — the  press  and  public  speech— and 
to  accustom  them  to  confront  their  opponents,  to 
fight  them  in  the  open  country,  without  taking 
shelter  behind  crumbling  entrenchments  and 
ruined  walls.  The  press  and  public  speech  were 
two  arms  which  Lacordaire  and  the  writers  of 
the  u  Avenir"  could  use  with  equal  facility,  and  it 
was  he  who  gave  the  best  example  of  their  employ- 
ment. Although  Lamennais  took  up  the  pen  but 
rarely,  yet  he  always  used  it  with  singular  vigour, 
and  it  was  he  who  wrote  the  articles  on  doctrine  and 
principle.  The  gentle  Abbe  Gerbet  was  ill  fitted 
for  the  asperities  of  daily  controversy.  There 
remained  Lacordaire  and  Montalembert,  the  others 
being  only  obscure  assistants.  It  is  with  this 
meeting  in  the  offices  of  the  "  Avenir"  (for  up  to 
this  they  had  been  strangers  to  each  other)  that 
began  the  close  intimacy  between  these  two 
men  to  whom  Catholics  owe  so  much  gratitude. 

32 


Charles  de  Montalembert 


To  face  p.  32 


THE   "AVENIR"  33 

Forty  years  afterwards,  Montalembert  recalled  the 
memory  of  this  meeting  in  moving  terms  : 

"  Would  that  it  were  given  me,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  to  paint  him  as  he  appeared  in  all  the  brilliance 
and  all  the  charm  of  youth  !  He  was  twenty- 
eight.  His  active  figure,  his  fine  and  regular 
features,  his  statue-like  brow,  the  sovereign  poise 
of  his  head,  his  dark  and  sparkling  eyes,  with 
something  proud  and  elegant,  and  yet  modest  in  his 
whole  person, — all  this  was  but  the  envelope  of  a 
soul  that  seemed  ready  to  overflow.  .  .  .  His 
voice,  already  so  clear  and  vibrant,  often  fell  into 
tones  of  infinite  sweetness.  Born  to  fight  and  to 
love,  he  seemed  to  me  both  charming  and  terrible, 
like  the  very  model  of  virtue  armed  on  behalf  of 
truth."  And  on  his  side  Lacordaire  wrote  of 
Montalembert  this  singular  phrase,  which  shows 
with  what  prejudices  his  soul  was  still  filled  :  "  1 
love  him  as  much  as  if  he  were  a  Plebeian." 

The  self-styled  Plebeian,  aristocrat  though  he 
was,  was  then  a  young  man  of  twenty-two,  un- 
known to  all ;  and  whatever  the  talent  of  which 
he  already  gave  promise,  he  could  but  efface 
himself  behind  Lacordaire.  The  two  "  wrote  the 
paper,"  as  the  press  jargon  puts  it,  but  Lacordaire 
wrote  more  regularly  than  Montalembert.  In  the 
first  six  numbers  of  the  journal,  the  principal 
article  was  furnished  by  him  seven  times.1 

Entirely  given  up  to  action  and  combat,  he 
applied  himself  at  first  to  raise  the  courage  of 
Catholics,  to  bring  them  into  line,  to  implant  in 
them  a  feeling  of  their  strength.  He  did  not 
permit  them  to  be  treated  with  contempt,  as  a 
conquered  party,  nor,  above  all,  as  the  adherents 
of  a  superannuated  faith  which  was  destined  to 

1  The  articles  from  the  u  Avenir  "  have  not  been  reprinted  in  the 
complete  edition  of  Lacordaire's  works.  They  must  be  sought  in 
the  collection  of  articles  from  the  "Avenir." 


34  LACORDAIRE 

disappear  as  the  religions  of  antiquity  had  dis- 
appeared. Thus,  in  an  article  entitled  "The 
Rising  Movement  of  Catholicism,"  he  replied 
proudly  to  an  article  on  the  decay  of  Catholicism 
that  had  appeared  in  the  "  Globe,"  the  old  journal 
of  the  doctrinaires,  which  they  had  left,  but  in 
which  their  spirit  still  reigned.  After  having 
shown  the  Church  resisting  all  trials — not  only 
persecution,  heresy,  and  schism,  but  even  the  at- 
tempts that  kings  had  made  to  subjugate  her, — 
Henry  VIII  in  England,  Louis  XIV  in  France, 
Joseph  II  in  Austria — to  what  he  called  the  gnawing 
worm  of  Anglicanism,  Gallicanism,  and  Joseph- 
ism;  he  then  showed  her  developing  herself 
through  liberty  in  every  country  where  it  had 
been  granted  to  her,  and  he  invited  the  "Globe" 
to  meet  him  "in  the  fiftieth  year  of  the  century 
of  which  they  were  the  children,"  thus  laying  on 
the  future  the  trouble  of  determining  the  difference 
between  those  who  predicted  the  decay  and  those 
who  predicted  the  rise  of  Catholicism.  When 
the  fiftieth  year  of  the  century  came,  the  "Globe" 
did  not  attend  the  meeting,  for  it  had  long  since 
disappeared;  so,  it  is  true,  had  the  "Avenir"; 
but  judging  from  the  place  occupied  to-day  in 
the  world  by  the  ideas  represented  by  Lacor- 
daire  and  those  represented  by  the  "Globe," 
we  can  decide  on  which  side  accuracy  of  outlook 
and  truth  were  to  be  found. 

It  was  rarely,  however,  that  Lacordaire  chose 
questions  of  so  vague  and  abstract  a  nature  as 
subjects  for  his  article.  He  preferred  to  seek  his 
themes  from  the  ordinary  facts  of  current  politics, 
and  he  displayed  in  his  controversy,  carried  on 
almost  every  day,  that  art  of  the  journalist  which 
consists  in  seizing  on  an  incident,  magnifying  it, 
sometimes  distorting  it,  and  drawing  arguments 
from  it  to  the  advantage  of  his  own  thesis.     What 


THE   "AVENIR"  35 

especially  preoccupied  Lacordaire  at  this  period, 
what  according  to  circumstances  inspired  his 
passion  or  his  animation,  was  the  relations 
between  the  clergy  and  the  new  Government, 
relations  which  every  moment  gave  rise  to  diffi- 
culties and  conflicts.  Almost  the  whole  of  the 
clergy  had  looked  upon  the  Revolution  of  July 
with  disfavour,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that 
their  feeling  was  natural  enough.  As  my  eminent 
colleague,  M.  Thureau-Dangin,  has  said  in  his 
fine  history,  "during  the  July  days  the  Church 
seemed  conquered  by  the  same  right  as  the  old 
Royalism,  and  irreligion  victorious  by  the  same 
right  as  Liberalism."  But  conquered  or  not,  the 
Church  had  recognised  the  new  Government,  as  the 
other  Governments  of  Europe  had  done.  The  Con- 
cordat had  not  been  broken,  and  the  same  bond 
still  united  Church  and  State.  What  attitude 
then  should  the  ministers  of  the  Church  adopt, 
and  what  were  the  rights  of  the  Government? 

The  Government  required  that  bishops  and 
parish  priests,  whatever  were  their  personal 
opinions,  should  not  adopt  a  factious  attitude 
towards  itself  (which  was  the  case  with  some  of 
them),  and  that  towards  the  new  sovereignty 
they  should  discharge  the  duties  which  they  had 
discharged  towards  the  old.  Certainly  there  was 
nothing  excessive  in  the  claim,  but  the  form  in 
which  it  was  expressed  was  not  always  very  happy. 
Thus,  as  several  priests  of  the  Jura  persevered  in 
their  refusal  to  pray  for  the  King,  the  Prefect  of 
the  Department  believed  it  his  duty  to  address  a 
proclamation  to  them,  in  which,  after  declaring 
that  the  law  is  the  people's  divinity,  and  that  its 
power  extends  everywhere  and  over  all,  he  urged 
them  to  remember  that  when  a  man  adopts  an 
attitude  of  hostility  towards  the  State,  he  ought 
not    to    have    recourse    to   its   benefits.      Lacor- 


36  LACORDAIRE 

daire  took  up  this  language  with  firmness,  and 
addressing  himself,  not  only  to  the  priests  of  the 
Jura,  "  but  to  all  those  who  with  the  heart  of  a 
man  pray  to  God,"  he  said  to  them  :  "  Pray  for 
the  King ;  pray  for  his  family,  for  the  peace  of 
his  reign  and  the  tranquillity  of  the  world,  not  on 
account  of  your  Prefect,  but  on  account  of  the  God 
Who  commands  it,  on  account  of  your  early  ances- 
tors who  prayed  thus.  Moreover,  have  a  profound 
feeling  of  the  indignity  of  the  language  spoken  to 
you,  and  see  how  much  the  State's  millions  cost 
you."  And  he  went  on  to  show  the  Ministers 
exacting  prayers  of  which  the  consciences  of  the 
priests  would  not  be  judges,  and  answering  their 
protests  with  the  mere  word,  "You  are  paid." 
i  i  They  need  not  be  just, "  he  exclaimed  ;  '  *  you  are 
paid.  They  have  no  accounts  to  render  you  ;  you 
are  paid.  .  .  .  Have  men  ever  been  treated  with 
more  contempt?  They  mock  your  prayers  and  yet 
order  you  to  repeat  them.  If  you  do  not  obey, 
you  are  seditious  persons  to  whom  the  treasury 
will  be  closed  ;  if  you  do  obey,  you  become  so 
vile  in  their  eyes  that  there  are  no  terms  in  their 
vocabularies  to  express  what  they  think  of  you." 

It  often  happened  also  that  a  maladroit  act  of 
some  subordinate  functionary  offered  Catholics 
an  opportunity  for  legitimate  protest.  In  the 
haste  and  disturbance  that  marked  the  morrow  of 
the  Revolution,  the  July  Government  had  not 
chosen  its  agents  with  much  discernment.  It  had 
taken  some  of  them  from  that  political  or  literary 
Bohemia  which,  as  soon  as  opportunity  presents 
itself,  rushes  towards  public  functions,  and  shows 
so  much  eagerness  to  wear  an  embroidered  coat. 
The  Sub-Prefect  of  Aubusson  must  have  been  one 
of  these.  Inspired,  doubtless,  by  the  remembrance 
of  the  police  superintendent  who,  fifteen  years 
before,  had  put  on  his  sash  in  order  to  command 


THE  "AVENIR"  37 

the  parish  priest  of  Saint  Roch  to  proceed  to  the 
interment  of  a  famous  actress,  this  Sub-Prefect 
wished  to  force  the  parish  priest  of  a  small 
township  in  his  district  to  receive  into  his  church 
the  body  of  a  notorious  free-thinker,  and,  as  the 
parish  priest  refused,  he  had  the  doors  of  the 
church  broken  open,  and  the  coffin  introduced  by 
main  force  into  the  sacred  edifice.  Certainly,  the 
scandal  was  great,  and  Lacordaire  was  right  to 
take  up  the  matter.  He  did  so  in  terms  of 
excessive  virulence  but  of  singular  eloquence  : 

"  Catholics,"  he  said,  "one  of  your  brethren 
has  refused  to  a  dead  man  the  prayers  and  the 
supreme  adieu  of  Christians.  Your  brother  has 
done  well.  Are  we  the  grave-diggers  of  the 
human  race?  Have  we  made  a  compact  with  it  to 
flatter  its  remains  ?  Are  we  more  unhappy  than  the 
courtiers  to  whom  a  prince's  death  gives  the  right 
of  treating  him  as  his  life  deserved?  Your  brother 
has  done  well.  But  a  shadow  of  a  pro-Consul  has 
believed  that  so  much  independence  was  unbe- 
coming in  a  citizen  so  vile  as  a  Catholic  priest. 
He  has  ordered  the  corpse  to  be  presented  before 
the  altar,  even  though  it  were  necessary  to  employ 
violence  to  place  it  there,  and  to  pick  the  locks  of 
the  doors  of  the  sanctuary  where,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  our  country's  laws,  rests  the  God  of  all 
men  and  of  most  Frenchmen.  A  common  Sub- 
Prefect,  a  removable  salaried  official,  has  sent  a 
corpse  into  the  house  of  God.  He  has  done  that, 
whilst  you  were  tranquilly  relying  on  the  pledge 
sworn  on  August  7th,  whilst  they  were  demanding 
from  you  prayers  to  bless  in  the  King  the  head  of 
the  liberty  of  a  great  nation.  He  has  done  this  in 
the  face  of  a  law  which  declares  that  worship  is 
free  ;  and  what  worship  is  free  if  its  temple  is  not 
free,  if  its  altar  is  not  free,  if,  with  arms  in  their 
hands,  men  are  able  to  drag  mud  into  it?     That 


38  LACORDAIRE 

Sub-Prefect  has  done  this  to  half  the  French 
people." 

Lacordaire  then  asked  himself  what  Catholics 
ought  to  do  in  face  of  this  affront.  The  church  of 
the  township  ought  to  be  abandoned,  for  a  place 
which  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  first  Sub-Prefect  or 
the  first  corpse  that  comes  is  no  longer  a  sacred 
place.  But  all  the  churches  ought  similarly  to  be 
abandoned.  "If  you  were  to  erect  your  altars," 
he  exclaimed,  "in  a  barn  that  was  your  own, 
instead  of  erecting  them  in  an  edifice  which  be- 
longs to  the  State,  you  would  be  free  for  ever 
from  this  orgy  of  power.  The  House  of  God 
would  be  inviolable,  because  it  would  be  the 
house  of  a  citizen.  It  would  no  longer  be  re- 
garded as  a  communal  place  fit  to  fold  sheep  in 
by  virtue  of  the  right  of  common  pasture,  and  if  a 
Sub-Prefect  were  to  send  a  corpse  into  it  under 
the  escort  of  a  half-company  of  National  Guards, 
all  France,  untouched  to-day  by  your  injuries, 
would  rise  in  indignation  against  him,  for  by 
attacking  your  liberty  he  would  be  attacking  the 
liberty  of  all.  Far  from  that,  what  is  happening? 
The  man  who  has  defied  so  many  Frenchmen  in 
their  religion,  who  has  treated  with  more  irrever- 
ence a  place  in  which  men  bow  their  knee  than  it 
would  have  been  permitted  him  to  treat  a  stable, 
that  man  is  seated  at  his  fireside,  easy  and  satisfied 
with  himself.  You  would  have  made  him  turn 
pale  if,  with  stick  in  hand  and  hat  on  head,  you 
had  taken  your  dishonoured  God  and  carried  Him 
into  some  shed  built  of  deal  planks,  swearing  not 
to  expose  Him  a  second  time  to  the  insults  of  the 
State  temples." 

Lacordaire,  as  we  have  just  seen,  let  slip  no 
occasion  of  showing  to  his  brethren,  the  priests, 
the  humiliating  situation  in  which  they  were 
placed  towards  the  Government  by  "the  necessity 


THE   "AVENIR"  39 

of  going  every  month  to  the  tax-collector's  coffer." 
Yet  this  peril  was  nothing,  in  Lacordaire's  eyes, 
in  comparison  with  other  and  graver  dangers. 
Should  the  clergy  abandon  the  temples  and 
proudly  reject  the  gold  offered  them  to  pay  for 
their  servitude,  on  the  next  day  the  peril  would 
be  averted  ;  the  present  and  the  future  would  be 
saved  by  the  same  stroke.  It  would  be  other- 
wise if  the  clergy,  whom  Lacordaire  invited  to 
independence,  were  sullied  in  the  purity  of  their 
method  of  recruiting.  This  recruiting  depended 
on  the  bishops  who  nominated  the  parish  priests  ; 
but  those  bishops  themselves  were  nominated  by 
the  State.  He  shuddered  at  the  thought  that  the 
supreme  pastors  of  the  Church  might  be  proposed 
to  the  choice  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  and  im- 
posed on  Catholics  by  Ministers  who  would  not 
share  their  faith.  He  saw  in  this  a  certain 
means  of  humiliating  the  Church  of  France  by 
striking  first  at  her  head,  and  he  found  words  of 
extraordinary  vehemence  to  express  the  apprehen- 
sions with  which  this  dark  design  of  Ministers 
inspired  him. 

"What  guarantee,"  he  exclaimed,  "shall  we 
have  of  their  choice  ?  Since  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion is  no  longer  the  religion  of  the  country, 
the  Ministers  of  State  are,  and  from  a  legal  point 
of  view  ought  to  be,  completely  impartial  in  regard 
to  us  ;  will  their  impartiality  be  our  guarantee  ? 
They  are  laymen  ;  they  may  be  Protestants,  Jews, 
atheists.  Will  their  consciences  be  our  guarantee  ? 
They  are  chosen  from  the  ranks  of  a  society  im- 
bued with  an  obstinate  prejudice  against  us.  Will 
their  prejudice  be  our  guarantee?  They  have 
been  ruling  over  society  for  four  months.  Will 
their  past  be  our  guarantee?  They  have  opened 
their  mouths  only  to  threaten  us ;  they  have 
stretched  out  their  hands  only  to  throw  down  our 


40  LACORDAIRE 


crosses ;  they  have  signed  regulations  only  to  sanc- 
tion arbitrary  acts  of  which  we  were  the  victims  ; 
they  have  left  untouched  agents  who  violated  our 
sanctuaries ;  they  have  not  once  protected  us  in 
any  quarter  of  France  ;  they  have  offered  us  as  a 
premature  holocaust  to  every  passion  ;  these  are 
the  grounds  of  security  that  they  offer  us ! " 
Lacordaire  also  addressed  himself  to  the  bishops 
of  France  to  beg  them  not  to  accept  their  future 
colleagues  from  the  hands  of  Ministers ;  and  he 
endeavoured  to  move  them  by  describing  in  elo- 
quent terms  the  state  to  which  the  Church  of 
France  would  be  reduced  by  an  episcopate  re- 
cruited on  a  lower  scale.  "  In  proportion  as  you 
decrease,"  he  said  to  the  bishops,  "  they  will  place 
on  your  seats  men  honoured  with  their  confidence, 
whose  presence  will  decimate  your  ranks,  without, 
however,  destroying  their  unity.  Afterwards,  what 
remains  of  decency  will  be  wiped  away  from  their 
acts,  and  in  a  subterranean  manner  ambition  will 
conclude  horrible  bargains.  .  .  .  An  episcopate 
that  will  issue  from  them  is  an  episcopate  already 
judged.  Whether  it  desires  it  or  not,  it  will  be  a 
traitor  to  religion.  The  necessary  plaything  of 
the  thousand  changes  that  transport  power  from 
hand  to  hand,  it  will  mark  in  your  ranks  all  the 
Ministerial  and  anti-Catholic  gradations  which 
majorities  will  in  turn  adore  as  their  own  work. 
In  agreement  on  only  one  point,  the  new  bishops 
will  bend  their  clergy  to  a  trembling  submission 
before  the  most  insensate  caprices  of  a  Minister 
or  of  a  Prefect,  and  in  this  Babel  the  language  of 
servility  is  the  only  one  that  will  never  vary." 

The  question  appeared  to  him  so  grave  that  if 
the  bishops  remained  deaf  to  these  protests,  if  they 
accepted  into  their  ranks,  if  they  regarded  as  their 
brethren,  colleagues  whose  origin  was  impure, 
Lacordaire  proclaimed,  in  the  name  of  the  con- 


THE  "AVENIR"  41 

ductors  of  the  u  Avenir,"  that  they  would  address 
their  protests  to  Rome.  "  We  will  carry  them 
there  on  our  bare  feet  if  necessary,"  he  exclaimed 
at  the  end  of  an  article  which  has  become  famous, 
"to  the  city  of  the  Apostles,  to  the  steps  of  Saint 
Peter's  confession,  and  it  will  be  seen  who  will 
stop  the  pilgrims  of  God  and  of  liberty  on  their 
journey."1 

Lacordaire  thus  foretold,  several  months  in 
advance  (for  the  article  dates  from  November, 
1830),  the  journey  which  was  to  put  an  end  to  the 
controversies  raised  by  the  appearance  of  the 
"Avenir."  Before  that  journey  was  finished  he 
was  destined  to  have  more  than  one  opportunity 
of  breaking  a  lance  in  favour  of  the  thesis  he  had 
adopted  :  that  of  the  absolute  independence  of  the 
priest,  who,  in  France,  was  henceforth  to  be  a 
citizen  like  other  citizens,  invoking  no  privilege, 
but  admitting  no  subjection,  paying  heed  only  to 
his  spiritual  chiefs,  and  obeying  only  the  laws. 
He  wanted,  first  of  all,  to  show  by  a  striking 
example  that  the  exercise  of  the  priesthood  had  in 
it  nothing  incompatible  with  that  of  any  liberal 
profession.  With  this  intention,  on  December 
30th,  1830,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  President 
of  the  Order  of  Advocates  of  the  Court  of  Paris, 
informing  him  that  he  intended  to  resume  his  term 
of  probation,  which  had  been  interrupted  at  the 
end  of  eighteen  months  by  his  religious  studies. 
The  Council  of  the  Order,  which  did  not  care  to 
see  a  priest  figuring  on  its  list,  refused  after  a 

1  At  the  end  of  his  life  Lacordaire  loyally  admitted  that  his 
complaints  against  the  July  Government  were  marked  by  some 
exaggeration.  "The  'Avenir'  had  taken,"  he  wrote,  "too 
aggressive,  not  to  say  too  violent,  an  attitude  towards  the  power 
that  issued  from  1830.  ...  It  would  have  been  better  had  our 
complaints  been  honoured  by  less  bitter  language,  and  had  our 
style  savoured  more  of  Christianity  than  of  the  licence  of  the 
times." 


42  LACORDAIRE 

long  and  stormy  discussion.  Lacordaire  was  thus 
unable,  as  he  had  desired,  to  put  on  the  gown 
over  the  cassock,  and  to  defend  Catholic  interests 
in  the  courts  ;  but  opportunity  did  not  fail  him  of 
placing  his  speech  and  his  growing  eloquence  at 
the  service  of  the  conception  he  had  formed  of  the 
priest  and  of  his  part  in  society.  It  fell  to  him 
to  argue  in  the  courts  that  question  which  even 
to-day  does  not  seem  to  be  settled  for  certain 
minds  :  Is  the  priest  a  functionary  or  is  he  not? 

During  the  last  year  of  the  Restoration,  he  had, 
as  almoner  of  the  Lycee  Henry  IV,  published 
along  with  his  colleagues  a  memorandum  in  which 
he  drew  the  attention  of  the  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction  to  the  deplorable  state  of  religious 
teaching  in  the  Lycees  and  colleges.  A  university 
journal,  the  u Lycee,"  had  taken  sides  against  this 
memorandum  in  a  violent  manner ;  it  denounced 
it  as  a  model  of  spying  and  hypocrisy,  and  it  de- 
manded that  the  religious  teaching  in  the  colleges 
should  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  men  who  were 
so  perverse,  and  who  were  the  most  implac- 
able enemies  of  liberty.  Lacordaire  immediately 
began  a  prosecution  for  defamation  against  this 
journal  in  the  Tribunal  Correctional,  that  is  to  say, 
under  the  common-law  jurisdiction.  But  in  the 
course  of  the  trial  a  question  of  jurisdiction  was 
raised  by  the  representative  of  the  public  ministry. 
Were  not  the  almoners  public  functionaries?  In 
that  case  it  would  be  not  before  the  Tribunal 
Correctional  but  before  a  jury  that  the  complaint 
should  be  brought.  In  order  to  establish  the 
want  of  jurisdiction  of  the  Court,  the  King's 
Advocate  (we  would  call  him  to-day  the  Surro- 
gate)  used  an  unfortunate  expression.  "  Priests," 
he  said,  "are  the  ministers  of  a  foreign  Sove- 
reign." At  these  words  Lacordaire  arose.  "  No, 
sir,  that  is  not  so,"  he  said  in  vibrant  tones;  "we 


THE   "AVENIR"  43 

are  the  ministers  of  One  Who  is  a  foreigner 
nowhere — of  God."  God  was  then  in  fashion,  if 
the  Pope  was  not.  The  audience  burst  into 
applause,  and  when  the  hearing  was  over,  a 
man  detached  himself  from  the  crowd,  grasped 
Lacordaire  by  the  hand,  and  said  to  him :  ' 'Priest, 
you  are  a  worthy  man.     What  is  your  name  ?  " 

However,  the  Court  decided  for  the  King's 
Advocate,  and  declared  that  it  had  no  jurisdic- 
tion. But  the  Public  Prosecutor,  disavowing  his 
subordinate,  appealed  on  the  question  of  juris- 
diction, and  maintained  before  the  Court  in 
lofty  terms  that  a  priest  was  not  and  could  not 
be  a  functionary,  although  he  was  an  almoner. 
Lacordaire  had  kept  silent  on  this  matter  at  the 
first  trial.  Before  the  higher  Court  he  accepted 
the  debate  and  immediately  raised  it  to  the 
height  of  a  philosophical  discussion.  "  What 
is  a  priest?"  he  said.  "  A  priest  is  a  man  who 
tells  the  word  of  God  to  men,  and  who  blesses  it 
in  His  name.  .  .  .  The  priest  is  a  man  of  that 
word ;  his  function  is  to  repeat  it.  From  Whom 
does  he  hold  this  function?  From  Him  alone 
Who  is  able  to  give  it  to  him — from  God.  Now, 
God  does  not  make  public  functionaries.  He 
makes  men.  The  priest  derives  his  title  only 
from  God  and  his  own  conscience,  because  his 
faith  comes  only  from  God  and  his  conscience. 
I  know  well  that  there  was  a  time  when  men's 
faith  came  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  law,  when 
liberty  of  conscience  did  not  exist  in  the  world. 
But  that  time  is  no  more.  After  several  centuries 
of  struggle,  the  blood  of  the  people  and  the 
Charter  of  France  have  founded  religious  liberty  ; 
it  is  imperishable.  God  has  become  free  with  the 
liberty  of  a  citizen  ;  we  claim  no  more  for  Him  ; 
we  desire  only  that  He  may  be  a  citizen  of 
France." 


44  LACORDAIRE 

Here  some  murmurs  came  from  the  audience, 
which  on  this  occasion  was  little  favourable  to 
Lacordaire,  and  seemed  scandalised  at  the  bold- 
ness of  this  speech.  Without  losing  any  of  his 
composure,  he  turned  towards  his  interrupters 
and  launched  this  apostrophe  at  them  :  "  Gentle- 
men, if  I  knew  a  finer  title  in  the  world  than  that 
of  citizen  of  France,  a  better  means  of  being  free 
than  that  of  bearing  it,  I  would  give  it  to  Him 
Who  has  been  willing  to  be  the  slave  of  men  in 
order  to  gain  their  liberty."  Then,  resuming  his 
argument,  he  demonstrated  that  neither  the  Con- 
cordat, nor  the  Penal  Code,  nor  this  or  that 
special  provision  at  the  University,  could  change 
the  character  of  the  priest  from  that  of  being 
a  private  citizen,  and  he  ended  by  saying : 
"I  claim  for  myself,  gentlemen,  that  sublime 
title ;  I  shall  defend  it  like  my  life,  like  my 
honour,  like  the  honour  of  all  those  who  bear  it 
with  me." 

The  Court  of  Paris  did  not  yield  either  to  the 
arguments  of  the  Public  Minister  or  to  the  burning 
eloquence  of  Lacordaire,  and  it  persisted  in  de- 
claring that  an  almoner  is  a  public  functionary. 
But  some  months  afterwards,  a  decision  of  the 
Court  of  Cassation,  re-establishing  the  true  doc- 
trine, reversed  a  decision  of  this  same  Court  of 
Paris  in  a  similar  case,  and  declared  that  a  priest 
is  not  a  functionary.  M.  Dupin,  who  was  then 
Attorney-General,  had  summed  up  clearly  in  this 
sense. 

Lacordaire  had  yet  another  famous  opportunity 
for  arguing  before  the  Courts  a  question  from 
which  the  passage  of  years  has  taken  nothing  of 
its  interest,  that  of  the  obedience  which  the  priest 
owes  the  laws  when  he  believes  them  bad,  when 
his  conscience  orders  him  to  demand  their  abro- 
gation.    This  time  it  was  not  in  the  capacity  of 


THE  "AVENIR"  45 

complainant  but  in  that  of  defendant  that  he 
appeared.  He  was  cited,  at  the  same  time  as 
Lamennais,  before  the  Court  of  Assizes,  for 
having,  in  several  articles  in  the  "Avenir" 
(among  others  in  one  of  those  I  have  quoted), 
committed  the  double  misdemeanour  of  incitement 
to  hatred  and  to  contempt  of  the  Government, 
and  of  instigation  to  disobedience  of  the  law. 
Lamennais,  who  had  no  oratorical  gifts,  was 
defended  at  length  by  M.  Janvier.  Lacordaire 
was  only  able  to  begin  his  speech  at  half-past 
seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  before  an  impassioned 
and  vibrant  audience  which  interrupted  him  every 
moment  by  its  applause. 

After  relating  in  a  magnificent  exordium  how 
he  had  become,  first  a  Christian,  then  a  priest, 
he  approached  the  two  heads  of  the  accusation. 
**  If  I  have  instigated  to  disobedience  of  the  law, 
I  have  committed  a  grave  fault,  for  the  law  is 
sacred.  It  is,  after  God,  the  safety  of  nations,  and 
no  one  ought  to  respect  it  more  than  a  priest, 
who  is  charged  to  teach  the  people  whence  comes 
life  and  whence  death.  Yet  I  confess  I  do  not 
feel  for  the  laws  of  my  country  that  extreme 
veneration  which  the  ancient  peoples  had  for 
theirs.  For  the  time  is  gone  when  the  law  was 
the  true  expression  of  the  traditions,  the  customs, 
and  the  gods  of  a  people  ;  all  that  is  changed  ;  a 
thousand  epochs,  a  thousand  opinions,  a  thousand 
tyrannies,  clash  together  in  our  complex  legisla- 
tion, and  to  die  for  such  laws  would  be  to  worship 
glory  and  infamy  at  the  same  time.  There  is  one 
of  them,  however,  which  I  respect,  which  I  love, 
which  I  will  defend,  and  that  is  the  Charter  of 
France  ;  not  that  I  am  attached  with  unshaken 
ardour  to  the  variable  forms  of  representative 
government,  but  because  the  Charter  is  a  covenant 
of  liberty,    and   because   in   the   anarchy   of  the 


46  LACORDAIRE 

world,  there  remains  to  men  but  one  country — 
liberty." 

He  then  defended  himself  from  the  charge  of 
having  desired  to  stir  up  hatred  and  contempt  of  the 
Government.  But  he  claimed  with  pride  his  right 
to  expound  the  grievances  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
" Those  grievances,"  he  said,  "are  numerous; 
crosses,  churches,  persons,  have  been  insulted  in 
many  places ;  teaching  has  been  impeded  by  new 
measures ;  a  thousand  subordinate  despots  have 
in  the  name  of  liberty  established  a  tyranny  over 
us.  .  .  .  Gentlemen,  I  have  been  moved  by  these 
wrongs  of  my  brethren  ;  I  have  raised  on  their 
behalf  and  on  my  own  a  voice  animated  by  the 
feelings  of  our  dignity  that  is  common  to  all ;  for 
all,  and  you  along  with  us,  are  citizens  of  France, 
of  this  free  country  in  which  each  is  accountable 
for  his  honour,  bound  to  defend  it,  bound  to 
repel  insult  and  oppression.  I  have  done  so  as 
far  as  it  depended  on  myself.  My  task  is  accom- 
plished. Yours  is  to  send  me  forth  cleared  of 
this  charge.  ...  I  call  upon  you  then  to  acquit 
Jean  Baptiste  Henri  Lacordaire,  seeing  that  he 
has  not  transgressed,  that  he  has  acted  as  a  good 
citizen,  that  he  has  defended  his  God  and  his 
liberty,  and,  gentlemen,  I  shall  do  so  throughout 
my  life." 

Lacordaire  and  Lamennais  were,  in  fact,  ac- 
quitted. Judgment  was  passed  at  midnight  amid 
the  applause  of  the  audience,  and  Montalembert, 
after  having  accompanied  the  victor  of  the  day 
along  the  quays  in  the  darkness  as  far  as  his  door, 
was  able  to  hail  him  as  the  great  Catholic  orator 
of  the  future. 

Finally,  Lacordaire  played  his  part  beside 
Montalembert  in  the  trial  which  became  famous 
under  the  name  of  the  Free  School  trial.  Every- 
body knows  that  they  were  both  summoned  before 


THE   "AVENIR"  47 

the  Court  of  Peers,  under  whose  jurisdiction 
Montalembert  came,  for  having  opened  an  infant 
school  without  permission,  relying  on  the  article 
in  the  Charter  which  promised  to  provide  for 
liberty  of  teaching  with  the  briefest  possible 
delay.  Before  this  imposing  tribunal  Montalem- 
bert spoke  first.  The  effect  of  his  speech  was 
prodigious,  and  created  a  singularly  difficult 
situation  for  Lacordaire,  who,  rightly  trusting  to 
his  marvellous  faculty  of  improvisation,  had  re- 
served himself  to  answer  M.  Persil,  the  Attorney- 
General.  His  exordium  has  remained  famous. 
"  Noble  Peers,"  said  he,  uas  I  look  around  me 
I  am  amazed.  I  am  amazed  to  see  myself  in  the 
seat  of  the  accused  while  the  Attorney-General  is 
in  the  seat  of  the  Public  Minister.  I  am  amazed 
that  the  Attorney-General  has  dared  to  be  my 
accuser — he  who  is  guilty  of  the  same  offence  as 
I,  and  who  committed  it  within  so  short  a  space 
of  time  and  in  this  enclosure  where  he  is  accusing 
me  before  you.  For  of  what  does  he  accuse  me  ? 
Of  having  exercised  a  right  written  in  the  Charter 
and  not  yet  regulated  by  process  of  a  law.  And 
yet  he  has  lately  asked  you  for  the  heads  of  four 
Ministers,  in  virtue  of  a  right  written  in  the 
Charter  and  not  yet  regulated  by  process  of  a 
law.  If  he  could  do  this,  so  could  I,  with  this 
difference  :  that  he  asked  for  blood,  and  that  I 
wanted  to  give  gratuitous  instruction  to  the  chil- 
dren of  the  people.  If  the  Attorney-General  is 
guilty,  how  does  he  accuse  me,  and  if  he  is  inno- 
cent, again  how  does  he  accuse  me?  " 

He  went  on,  refuting  step  by  step  the  argu- 
ments of  the  Attorney-General,  who  claimed  that 
the  Imperial  decrees  constituting  the  University 
had  the  force  of  laws  ;  and  this  return  on  the  past 
gave  him  an  opportunity  of  attacking  the  Uni- 
versity in  terms  the  violence  of  which  can  only  be 


48  LACORDAIRE 

explained  by  the  passions  of  the  time.  Finally, 
in  a  somewhat  pompous  peroration,  after  having 
mentioned  the  trial  of  Socrates,  "that  first  and 
famous  case  of  the  liberty  of  teaching,"  he  added  : 
"  When  Socrates  was  ready  to  part  from  his 
judges,  he  said  to  them,  i  We  are  going  to  part — 
you  to  live,  I  to  die.'  It  is  not  thus,  my  noble 
judges,  that  we  shall  part.  Whatever  your  verdict 
may  be,  we  shall  go  out  of  this  place  to  live  ;  for 
liberty  and  religion  are  immortal,  and  the  senti- 
ments of  a  pure  heart,  which  you  have  heard  from 
our  mouths,  will  not  perish  either. "  The  de- 
fendants were  condemned  to  pay  a  fine  of  one 
hundred  francs.  It  was  an  acquittal.  From  that 
day  onward  liberty  of  elementary  teaching  was 
morally  won,  and  this  time  at  least  the  service 
rendered  was  in  proportion  to  the  clamour. 

All  this,  however,  made  a  good  deal  of  noise. 
On  the  part  of  laymen  nothing  would  have  been 
more  legitimate.  At  certain  moments  forlorn 
hopes  enable  an  army  to  gain  more  ground  than 
crack  regiments.  But  that  two  priests  should 
lead  the  band,  and  that  their  efforts  should  con- 
duce, not  without  some  success,  to  drag  the  clergy 
in  their  train — this  was  where  the  danger  lay,  and  it 
was  natural  enough  that  it  should  disturb  the  eccle- 
siastical authorities.  The  doctrines  of  the  "Avenir  " 
brought  division  into  the  Church  of  France.  They 
found  an  echo  in  country  presbyteries,  among  some 
young  priests  who  were  delighted  by  the  generosity 
and  the  somewhat  revolutionary  boldness  of  these 
tones.  But  the  episcopate  unanimously  held 
them  in  legitimate  suspicion.  Without  counting 
that  their  origins  and  affections  attached  most  of 
the  bishops  to  the  fallen  order  of  things,  it  seemed 
to  them,  and  with  reason,  hardly  safe  on  the  mor- 
row of  a  revolution  in  which  the  explosion  of 
anti-Catholic  passions  had  shown  itself  in  some 


THE   "AVENIR"  49 

places  in  a  fierce  manner,  benevolently  to  abandon 
their  episcopal  palaces  and  their  cathedrals,  to  live 
in  deal  sheds  or  barns,  and  to  trust  for  their  daily- 
bread  to  the  generosity  of  the  faithful.  As  for  the 
absolute  liberty  of  the  press,  of  which  the  ' '  Avenir  " 
made  a  sort  of  dogma,  it  inspired  them  with  more 
terror  than  sympathy.  Thus  it  was  not  without 
uneasiness  that  they  saw  these  new  ideas  pene- 
trating into  their  seminaries  and  engaging  the 
young  recruits  of  the  clergy  in  vehement  contro- 
versies. Some  of  them  refused  Holy  Orders  to  the 
seminarists  who  had  declared  themselves  on  the 
side  of  the  "  Avenir";  others  dismissed  those 
professors  of  theology  who  were  guilty  of  having 
adopted  its  principles.  Some  went  so  far  as  to 
forbid  their  priests  to  read  the  journal  itself. 

On  the  other  hand,  outside  the  clergy,  the 
" Avenir"  found  little  support.  The  Royalists 
could  not  forgive  its  conductors  for  separating  the 
cause  of  the  Church  from  that  of  the  legitimist 
Royalty.  The  Liberals  had  no  confidence  in  the 
sincerity  of  their  Liberalism,  and  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  memory  of  Lacordaire's  early  pro- 
fessions of  faith  in  absolutism  rendered  their 
distrust  excusable  enough.  So  much  hostility, 
and  from  such  diverse  sources,  could  not  but 
injure  the  fortune  of  the  "  Avenir."  The  £3,200 
collected  to  found  the  journal  had  long  since  been 
exhausted.  The  number  of  subscribers,  which  had 
neverrisen  above  twelve  hundred,  was  diminishing. 
It  was  necessary  to  come  to  a  decision.  It  was 
Lacordaire  who  suggested  this.  The  episcopate 
condemned  them  ;  the  Nuncio  himself  disavowed 
them  publicly.  What  was  more  respectable  or 
more  conformable  to  the  Ultramontane  principles 
they  professed  than  to  appeal  to  Rome?  It  was 
necessary  to  suspend  publication  of  the  journal, 
and,    as   several    months   before   Lacordaire    had 

E 


50  LACORDAIRE 

proclaimed  their  intention,  to  bring  the  case  to 
Rome,  "  to  the  steps  of  St.  Peter's  confession." 
From  the  point  of  view  of  human  prudence,  this 
proposal  was  perhaps  imprudent ;  but  it  was  honest 
and  bold,  and  I  cannot  find  much  justice  in  the  re- 
proach of  having  accepted  it,  which  Lacordaire  and 
Montalembert  afterwards  addressed  to  Lamennais. 


CHAPTER  IV 

RUPTURE   WITH    LAMENNAIS— MONTALEMBERT 
AND  MADAME  SWETCHINE 

"  The  three  pilgrims  of  God  and  of  liberty,"  that 
is  to  say  Lamennais,  Lacordaire,  and  Montalem- 
bert,  set  out  together.  Together  they  went  along 
the  Corniche  road  which  Lamennais  was  to  de- 
scribe so  well  in  his  ' 'Affaires  de  Rome."  "From 
Antibes  to  Genoa  the  road  almost  always  skirts 
the  sea,  in  whose  bosom  its  pleasant  shores 
reflect  their  sinuous  and  varied  forms,  just  as 
our  passing  lives  display  their  fragile  contours 
in  immense,  eternal  duration."  Together  they 
could  admire  M  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of 
nature,  in  turn  imposing  and  engaging,  which 
seizes  on  the  soul  and  soothes  tumultuous 
thoughts,  bitter  memories,  and  restless  anticipa- 
tions." Those  tumultuous  thoughts  and  those 
restless  anticipations  which  already  worked  so 
strongly  in  the  soul  of  Lamennais  did  not  yet 
agitate  that  of  Lacordaire.  Lacordaire  was  per- 
forming the  pilgrimage  in  the  simplicity  of  his 
heart.  Doubtless  he  hoped  to  obtain  approbation 
for  the  doctrines  of  which,  under  the  absolute  and 
universal  form  that  the  "  Avenir"  had  given  them, 
his  inexperience  did  not  yet  measure  the  impru- 
dence and  the  audacity.  But,  if  they  should  be 
condemned,  doubt  as  to  the  conduct  that  ought  to 
be  followed  did  not  even  cross  his  mind,  and,  in 

5i 


52  LACORDAIRE 

the  course  of  the  journey,  the  disagreement  which 
was  to  separate  the  two  men  already  showed  some 
of  its  symptoms. 

Their  stay  at  Rome  only  accentuated  it  the  more. 
This  was  not  the  first  time  that  Lamennais  had 
betaken  himself  ad  limina  apostolorum.  He  had 
gone  there  on  the  morrow  of  the  dazzling  success  of 
the  first  volume  of  the  "  Essai  sur  l'lndifference," 
and  he  had  even  stayed  at  the  Vatican.  Leo  XII. 
had  given  him  a  most  flattering  welcome.  He 
had  even  gone  so  far  as,  in  a  consistory,  to  de- 
scribe him  (so  at  least  it  has  always  been  believed) 
as  "an  accomplished  writer  whose  work  had  not 
only  rendered  a  great  service  to  religion,  but  had 
astonished  and  delighted  Europe,"  and  a  man  on 
whom  he  intended  soon  to  confer  the  purple. 
Lamennais  had  returned,  delighted  with  this  wel- 
come, and  had  not  perceived  at  Rome  anything  of 
what  he  was  destined  to  discover  on  this  second 
journey.  If  uthe  part  of  humanity,"  to  use  a 
happy  expression  of  Madame  de  Lafayette,  which 
mingles  with  everything,  religious  or  not,  in  this 
world,  is  more  visible  at  Rome  than  elsewhere, 
it  is  perhaps  because  we  would  like  it  to  be  less 
so.  Lamennais,  badly  received  there,  would  see 
nothing  but  that  part,  and  he  was  able  to  write 
thus  :  "  It  has  been  said  that  Rome  is  the  country 
of  those  who  have  none  other.  We  do  not  conceive 
that  it  can  be  a  country  for  anybody,  according  to 
the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word.  One  can  go 
there  to  die,  but  not  to  live  ;  for  there  is  scarcely  a 
shadow  of  life  there.  No  movement,  if  it  is  not 
the  hidden  movement  of  a  crowd  of  petty  interests 
which  cross  and  crawl  over  one  another  in  the 
bosom  of  the  darkness,  like  worms  in  the  depth 
of  a  sepulchre.  Power  and  people  seem  to  you 
like  phantoms  of  the  past.  The  queenly  city, 
planted  in  the  midst  of  a  desert,  has  become  the 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        53 

city    of    death ;    death    reigns    there    in    all    its 
formidable  majesty  and  power." 

Quite  different  was  the  impression  of  Lacor- 
daire  immediately  after  his  arrival.  He  felt  the 
charm  and  understood  the  greatness  of  the  city  of 
death.  He  had  gone  there,  with  the  dust  of 
struggle  upon  him,  convinced  that  the  future 
destiny  of  the  Church  depended  on  the  judgment 
Rome  was  about  to  give,  and  that,  humanly  at 
least,  she  was  lost  if  she  did  not  seek  salvation  in 
the  doctrines  of  the  "Avenir."  At  the  end  of 
a  few  days  he  perceived  that  those  struggles,  to 
the  din  of  which  he  believed  the  world  was  listen- 
ing, had  produced  only  a  moderate  impression 
at  Rome.  Interests  not  less  grave  attracted  its 
attention,  sometimes  in  this  direction,  sometimes 
in  that,  in  Asia  or  in  America,  as  well  as  in 
Europe.  It  had  to  watch  over  the  whole  earth, 
and  the  "  Avenir"  was  only  a  small  corner,  in 
which,  perhaps,  a  little  more  noise  had  been  made 
than  elsewhere.  It  was  necessary  to  be  silent  and 
to  listen.  This  is  what  Lacordaire  immediately 
understood.  But  at  the  same  time,  according  to 
Father  Chocarne's  expression,  he  understood 
Rome,  and,  on  his  return,  he  spoke  of  it  in 
terms  which  it  is  interesting  to  place  beside 
those  which  Lamennais  used  (not,  indeed,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  form,  for  there  the  superiority  is 
not  on  his  side).  "  Oh  Rome!"  he  exclaimed, 
"  I  have  visited  with  infinite  love  the  relics  of  thy 
saints,  which  are  always  young,  and  the  relics, 
admirable  also,  of  all  thy  grandeurs.  After  so  many 
centuries  I  have  found  thee  still  erect.  Amidst 
the  storms  of  Europe  there  was  in  thee  no  doubt 
of  thyself,  no  lassitude  ;  thy  glance,  directed  to 
the  four  corners  of  the  world,  followed  with  sub- 
lime lucidity  the  development  of  things  human  in 
their  connection  with  things  divine.     The   cross 


54  LACORDAIRE 


shone  on  thy  brow  like  a  golden  and  immortal 
star  ;  but  it  was  always  the  cross." 

In  spite  of  this  divergence  of  views,  which  time 
was  to  render  still  deeper,  it  was  to  Lacordaire 
that  the  three  friends  entrusted  the  composition  of 
the  Memorandum  in  which  they  intended  at  once 
to  expound  their  doctrines  and  to  defend  their 
general  conduct,  a  Memorandum  which  was  des- 
tined to  pass  under  the  eyes  of  the  Holy  Father. 
Neither  the  articles  from  the  "Avenir"  nor  this 
Memorandum  are  to  be  found  in  the  complete 
works  of  Lacordaire.  It  is  in  those  of  Lamennais 
that  it  must  be  sought,  for  the  latter  inserted  it  at 
full  length,  not  without  malice,  in  the  volume 
"Affaires  de  Rome."  This  piece  of  writing, 
which  is  little  known,  is  a  curious  mixture  of  just 
views  on  the  situation  of  the  Catholic  Church  in 
France,  and  of  extravagant  conclusions.  After 
pointing  out  the  inconveniences  and  the  perils 
that  had  resulted  from  the  too  close  intimacy  of 
the  Church  with  theGovernment  of  the  Restoration, 
Lacordaire  showed  how  necessary  it  was  that  the 
Church  should  abandon  all  alliance  with  parties. 
By  taking  this  attitude,  the  Church  became  in- 
violable to  all ;  she  chose,  above  passions,  her 
true  place,  and  she  accomplished  the  mission  of 
peace  that  she  had  received  from  Jesus  Christ. 
But  to  secure  this  position  for  the  Church,  two 
sacrifices  were  necessary — that  of  political  affec- 
tions and  that  of  the  budget  of  the  clergy.  It  was 
necessary  to  sacrifice  purely  political  affections, 
not  in  the  sense  that  benefits  received  should  be 
effaced  from  the  memory,  that  sympathy  for  great 
misfortunes  should  be  stifled,  that  hostility  should 
be  entertained  for  those  who  had  been  loved,  but 
in  this  sense,  that  placing  religion  above  party 
interests,  no  Christian  should  use  it  to  subserve 
the   triumph  of    an   earthly  cause.     As  for    the 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        55 

budget  of  the  clergy,  in  principle  it  was  a  debt. 
But  the  Government  regarded  it  as  a  salary,  and 
public  opinion  was  with  the  Government.  "  You 
are  paid  by  the  State,"  it  was  said  to  the  priests. 
"  Why  do  you  complain  of  serving  it?"  Let  the 
Church  herself  give  up  claiming  the  payment  of 
this  debt,  and  by  that  act  she  would  find  herself 
freed  from  all  the  bonds  that  subjected  her  to  the 
State.  By  means  of  this  double  sacrifice,  the 
Catholic  Church  would  acquire  a  liberty  that  she 
had  never  known,  and  the  Catholic  religion,  com- 
promised by  false  political  action,  would  recover 
the  empire  that  it  had  lost  over  the  souls  of 
men. 

When  we  re-read  this  Memorandum,  in  which 
is  expressed  such  judicious  considerations  on 
the  dangers  to  which  political  alliances  expose 
the  Church,  it  is  impossible  not  to  ask  oneself 
what  welcome  it  would  have  received  if,  fifty  years 
ago,  the  Holy  See  had  been  occupied  as  it  is 
to-day.1  Assuredly  the  bold  thesis  which  made  it 
a  duty  for  the  Church  to  break  every  attachment 
with  the  State  would  not  have  received  an  express 
approbation,  for  it  is  not  customary  for  the  Church 
voluntarily  to  enter  upon  adventures.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  is  too  striking  an  analogy 
between  the  doctrine  of  the  necessary  sacrifice  of 
political  affections  to  the  superior  interests  of 
religion,  and  the  recommendations  of  a  recent  En- 
cyclical, not  to  make  it  permissible  to  ask  oneself 
if  the  second  part  of  the  Memorandum  would  not 
have  obtained  the  same  favour  as  the  first.  Un- 
happily, Gregory  XVI.  was  not  Leo  XIII.;  he  was 
a  pontiff  more  mystical  than  political,  pious  but 
timorous,  who  assumed  the  tiara  at  a  moment 
when,  through  the  events  of  July,  all  the  thrones 

1  This  book  first  appeared  while  Leo  XIII.  was  still  alive. 


56  LACORDAIRE 

of  Europe  felt  themselves  more  or  less  shaken. 
In  this  crisis  the  "  Avenir  "  had  taken  the  side  of 
the  peoples  against  the  kings,  and  Gregory  XVI. 
felt  his  solidarity  with  the  other  Sovereigns.  It 
was  therefore  inevitable  that  the  campaign  of  the 
"Avenir"  should  inspire  him  with  an  unconquerable 
alarm.  Nevertheless,  without  the  incredible  insist- 
encewhich  Lamennais  employed  in  urging  in  some 
fashion  his  own  formal  condemnation,  it  is  prob- 
able that  a  tacit  disapproval  would  have  appeared 
sufficient.  After  the  reception  of  their  Memor- 
andum, the  Sovereign  Pontiff  had  answered  the 
conductors  of  the  "  Avenir,''  through  the  inter- 
mediary of  Cardinal  Pacca,  that  "whilst  acknow- 
ledging their  talents  and  their  good  intentions, 
he  was  displeased  that  certain  controversies  and 
opinions  which  were,  to  say  the  least,  dangerous, 
had  recently  been  aroused  ;  that  in  accordance 
with  their  desire  he  would  examine  their  doc- 
trines, but  that  as  this  examination  might  be  very 
long,  they  could  return  to  France,  and  care  would 
be  taken  to  inform  them  when  it  was  con- 
cluded." 

It  was  on  the  line  to  be  taken  in  reply  to  this 
discreet  counsel  that  the  first  open  disagreement 
between  Lacordaire  and  Lamennais  displayed 
itself.  The  Memorandum  addressed  to  the  Pope 
by  the  conductors  of  the  "Avenir"  ended  with 
the  declaration,  "that  they  were  as  docile  as 
children  to  his  voice."  Was  not  the  first  sign  to 
be  given  of  this  docility  to  take  the  counsel  as  an 
order,  and  to  return  to  France  instead  of  con- 
tinuing a  stay  at  Rome  the  prolongation  of  which 
seemed  a  sort  of  coercion  ?  This  was  the  opinion 
which  Lacordaire  clearly  and  emphatically  stated, 
an  opinion  which  he  could  induce  neither  Lamen- 
nais nor  Montalembert  to  share.  To  return  to 
Paris  without  having  obtained  express  approba- 


RUPTURE  WITH    LAMENNAIS        57 

tion  for  the  doctrines  of  the  "Avenir"  appeared 
to  Lamennais  to  be  a  mark  not  of  docility  but 
of  failure  ;  and  as  for  Montalembert,  who  was 
completely  under  the  yoke  of  Lamennais,  the  fact 
of  leaving  alone  at  Rome  the  man  with  whom 
they  had  gone  there,  seemed  to  him  an  act  of 
ingratitude  and  desertion.  Lacordaire  therefore 
decided  to  break  up  the  alliance,  and  he  left 
Rome  on  March  15th,  1832,  "with  the  saddest 
forebodings  and  the  saddest  farewells." 

The  situation  in  which  Lacordaire  was  to  find 
himself  on  reaching  Paris  was  difficult.  So  close 
was  the  intimacy  in  which  the  conductors  of  the 
"  Avenir"  lived,  that  Lamennais  and  Lacordaire 
lodged  together  at  98  Rue  de  Vaugirard,  in  a 
flat  of  three  little  rooms,  taken  in  Lacordaire's 
name.  He  could  hardly  go  elsewhere,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  take  up  quarters  under  the 
same  roof  as  Lamennais  was  in  some  sort  to 
engage  himself  anew  in  the  bonds  from  which 
he  was  already  engaged  in  freeing  himself. 
Moreover,  he  was  without  occupation.  He  had 
long  since  resigned  his  modest  employment  as 
chaplain  of  the  Visitation  Convent  in  order  to 
enter  upon  his  work  on  the  "Avenir,"  and  this 
situation  of  an  idle  priest  weighed  heavily  on  his 
ardent  nature.  Circumstances  did  not  delay  to 
furnish  a  scope  for  his  energies. 

Cholera  had  just  broken  out  in  Paris.  Since 
the  July  Revolution  the  almonry  service  had  been 
disorganised  in  the  hospitals,  and  the  prejudices 
of  the  people  against  the  ecclesiastical  habit  were 
still  so  great  that  priests  could  not  gain  admittance 
to  them  except  in  lay  costume.  It  was  by  mixing 
with  the  students  who  accompanied  the  doctor  on 
his  visits  that  Lacordaire  was  able  daily  to  enter  a 
temporary  hospital  established  at  the  Corn  Stores, 
where  he  tried  to  find  among  the  crowd  of  patients 


58  LACORDAIRE 

those  who  would  accept  his  ministry.  ' '  Is  there  no 
priest  here  ?  "  asked  a  soldier,  seated  at  the  bedside 
of  his  wife  who  had  been  brought  in  dying.  "  I 
am  one,"  answered  Lacordaire,  and  he  added  in 
a  letter  in  which  he  told  the  story:  "One  is 
happy  to  find  oneself  at  hand  to  save  a  soul  and 
to  bring  a  man  happiness." 

Thus,  in  the  exercise  of  his  first  duty  as  a 
priest — the  ministry  of  souls — Lacordaire  found 
again  something  of  the  calm  that  the  heat  of  con- 
troversy had  disturbed  within  him.  At  the  same 
time  he  was  preparing  himself  by  theological  and 
historical  studies  for  the  moment  when  those 
who  thought  as  he  did  "could  reappear,  amid 
the  applause  of  the  immense  majority  of  Catholics 
and  clergy,  with  the  strength  of  men  who  have 
been  able  to  keep  silent."  "Silence,"  he  added 
in  a  letter  to  Montalembert,  "is  the  next  greatest 
power  in  the  world  after  speech." 

Silence  was  not  a  power  that  Lamennais  was 
inclined  to  call  to  his  aid.  A  short  time  after  he 
had  written  this  letter,  Lacordaire  was  informed 
that  Lamennais,  not  being  able  to  obtain  a  formal 
sentence  from  Rome,  was  arranging  to  return  to 
Paris,  there  to  resume  the  publication  of  the 
"  Avenir."  He  had  already  apprised  some  of  his 
former  colleagues  of  his  plan  of  campaign.  To 
wait  for  Lamennais  in  the  house  in  the  Rue 
Vaugirard,  to  which  he  was  certain  to  come  to 
discuss  with  him  this  project  of  the  resumption  of 
the  "Avenir,"  and  to  refuse  to  take  part  in  it — this 
would  give  rise  to  a  violent  rupture.  Lacordaire 
recoiled  from  so  extreme  a  step.  He  resolved  to 
leave  Paris,  and  having  heard  that  Munich  was 
a  city  where  living  was  not  very  costly,  and 
where  there  were  abundant  intellectual  resources, 
he  borrowed  a  hundred  crowns  to  go  there,  re- 
solving to  continue,  at  least  for  a  time,  the  studies 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        59 

which  he  had  begun.  A  singular  accident  brought 
it  about  that  he  pursued  the  very  man  from  whom 
he  fled.  Lamennais  and  Montalembert,  returning 
from  Rome  through  the  Tyrol,  reached  Munich 
almost  at  the  same  time  as  Lacordaire,  and,  as 
everybody  knows,  it  was  as  he  was  leaving  a 
banquet  in  their  honour  that  Lamennais  heard  of 
the  famous  Encyclical  "  Mirari  Vos,"  in  which 
some  of  the  social  and  political  doctrines  of  the 
"Avenir"  were  the  subject  of  rather  stern 
censure,  without,  however,  there  being  any  mention 
either  of  the  name  of  the  journal  or  of  any  of  its 
contributors. 

At  first  it  was  possible  for  Lacordaire  to  believe 
that  there  was  complete  agreement  between  him- 
self and  his  old  colleagues  of  the  "  Avenir  "  regard- 
ing the  line  of  conduct  to  be  adopted.  "  We 
ought  not  to  hesitate  to  submit,"  had  been  the 
first  word  of  Lamennais  to  his  two  companions, 
and  next  day  he  proposed  for  their  signature  a 
form  of  words  by  which  they  declared  that  they 
retired  from  the  lists  in  which  they  had  loyally 
fought,  and  urgently  engaged  their  friends  to 
follow  their  example  of  Christian  submission. 
Lacordaire,  accordingly — Montalembert  having 
left  them  at  Strasburg — made  no  difficulty  about 
continuing  the  journey  back  to  Paris  along  with 
Lamennais.  As  they  were  climbing  a  hill  to- 
gether on  foot  near  Saverne,  "Lacordaire,"  ex- 
claimed Lamennais,  "  suppose  we  add  to  our 
declaration  the  words  'for  the  present.'"  Those 
words  might  have  opened  his  eyes  to  the  projects 
which  were  already  beginning  to  grow  in  that 
impatient  soul.  A  man  more  sagacious  than  he 
would  not  have  been  deceived.  Sainte-Beuve, 
who  had  taken  some  little  part  in  the  "  Avenir" 
movement,  as  he  had  taken  part  in  that  of  the 
Saint -Simonians,     went,     doubtless     urged     by 


6o  LACORDAIRE 

curiosity,  to  visit  the  two  inhabitants  of  the  almost 
unfurnished  flat  in  the  Rue  Vaugirard.  In  a 
room  on  the  ground  floor  he  found  Lamennais 
giving  expression,  with  great  freedom  of  lan- 
guage, to  all  that  had  displeased  him  at  Rome, 
and,  in  particular,  speaking  of  Gregory  XVI.  "as 
one  of  those  men  who  are  destined  to  bring  on 
desperate  remedies."  He  went  up  afterwards  to 
the  first  floor,  where  he  found  Lacordaire  speak- 
ing with  extreme  reserve  and  submission  of  the 
disappointments  they  had  experienced,  and  com- 
paring the  doctrines  of  the  " Avenir "  with  "the 
grain  which,  even  supposing  it  to  be  good,  needs 
to  sleep  under  the  earth  for  a  whole  winter."  If 
Lacordaire  had  been  the  sort  of  man  to  ask  Sainte- 
Beuve's  advice,  the  latter  would  not  have  failed 
to  predict  to  him  all  that  was  going  to  take  place 
at  La  Chesnaye. 

That  humble  dwelling,  whose  name  has  remained 
so  famous,  was  in  truth  to  be  the  witness  of  one  of 
those  silent  dramas  in  which  the  destiny  of  souls  is 
decided.  Lamennais  had  taken  refuge  there  to 
hide  his  defeat,  in  company  with  the  Abbe  Gerbet 
and  some  other  faithful  disciples  whom  Lacordaire 
did  not  believe  he  could  refuse  to  join.  "La 
Chesnaye,"  Lacordaire  has  written  since,  "had 
resumed  its  accustomed  character,  a  mixture  both 
of  solitude  and  animation  ;  but  if  the  woods  held 
the  same  silence  and  the  same  storms,  if  the  sky 
of  Armorica  had  not  changed,  it  was  not  the  same 
with  the  Master's  heart.  The  wound  in  it  was 
bleeding,  and  each  day  the  sword  was  again 
plunged  into  it  by  the  very  hand  of  him  who  ought 
to  have  snatched  it  out  and  put  the  balm  of  God 
in  its  place.  Terrible  images  passed  to  and  fro 
over  that  brow,  from  whence  peace  had  now  fled  ; 
broken  and  threatening  words  issued  from  that 
mouth  which  had  expressed  the  grace  of  the  Gospel. 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        61 

It  sometimes  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  looking  at 
Saul.  But  none  of  us  had  David's  harp  to  calm 
those  sudden  irruptions  of  the  Evil  Spirit,  and 
terror  of  the  most  sinister  forebodings  daily 
increased  in  my  dejected  mind." 

Lacordaire's  stay  at  La  Chesnaye  lasted  three 
months.  It  was  during  those  three  months  that 
the  laceration  lasted,  a  slow  laceration,  fibre  by 
fibre.  At  last,  one  day  after  a  painful  scene  caused 
by  a  haughty  and  vulgar  reply  from  Lamennais, 
he  came  to  his  decision.  Shut  up  alone  in  his 
room,  far  from  all  eyes,  he  wrote  a  sad  and  dignified 
letter  to  the  man  whose  guest  he  was,  in  which, 
not  daring  to  face  a  farewell  scene,  he  told  him 
that  he  was  leaving.  "  I  leave  La  Chesnaye  this 
evening,"  he  said  ;  "I  leave  it  from  a  motive  of 
honour,  being  convinced  that  henceforth  my  life 
would  be  useless  to  you  because  of  the  difference 
of  our  views  on  the  Church  and  on  society,  a 
difference  which  daily  only  increases  in  spite  of 
my  sincere  efforts  to  follow  the  development  of 
your  opinions.  .  .  .  Perhaps  your  opinions  are 
more  exact,  more  profound,  and,  having  regard  to 
your  natural  superiority  over  me,  I  ought  to  be 
convinced  of  this ;  but  reason  is  not  the  whole 
man,  and  since  I  have  not  been  able  to  uproot  from 
my  being  the  ideas  that  separate  us,  it  is  right  for 
me  to  put  an  end  to  a  common  life  which  is  all  to 
my  advantage  and  to  your  cost. "  (*)  And  he  ended 
by  saying:  "You  will  never  know,  except  in 
Heaven,  how  much  I  have  suffered  during  the 
past  year  from  the  mere  fear  of  causing  you  pain. 
.  .  .  Whatever  side  I  may  take,  you  will  have 
proofs  of  the  respect  and  attachment  which  I  shall 

(a)  In  order  to  understand  these  words,  it  is  necessary  to  know 
that  Lacordaire  had  no  private  means,  and  that,  while  he  lived  at 
La  Chesnaye,  it  was  entirely  at  the  expense  of  Lamennais. 


62  LACORDAIRE 

always  preserve  for  you,  and  of  which  I  beg  you 
to  accept  this  expression  which  comes  from  a 
wounded  heart." 

This  letter  is  the  most  eloquent  answer  to  those 
who  have  accused  Lacordaire  of  indifference  or 
harshness  in  regard  to  Lamennais.  The  struggle 
between  the  duties  prescribed  by  conscience  and 
the  consideration  due  to  persons,  between  the 
claims  of  truth  and  those  of  affection,  is  one  of  the 
hardest  trials  which  a  sensitive  soul  can  know.  It 
was  not  without  a  cruel  struggle  that  conscience 
and  truth  triumphed  over  affection  in  Lacordaire's 
soul.  In  order  to  accomplish  his  flight  from  La 
Chesnaye — for  it  was  a  real  flight — he  had  chosen 
the  moment  when  Lamennais  was  out  for  a  walk. 
At  the  moment  when  he  was  hastily  going  off,  he 
perceived  him  in  the  distance,  through  a  hedge, 
in  the  midst  of  his  faithful  disciples,  above  which 
his  head  was  visible.  Lacordaire  stopped  and 
almost  returned.  If  he  had  returned,  who  knows 
how  far  Lamennais  might  have  carried  him  ! 
There  are  in  life  those  decisive  moments  when  a 
man  feels  all  the  anguish  of  his  freedom.  But  will 
overcame  feeling,  and  Lacordaire  continued  his 
hurried  journey  as  far  as  Paris. 

The  first  months  which  followed  Lacordaire's 
return  to  Paris,  after  his  departure  from  La 
Chesnaye,  formed,  from  a  moral  and  material 
point  of  view,  the  most  difficult  epoch  in  his  life. 
He  had  returned  to  Paris  in  the  depth  of  winter, 
with  a  summer  suit  of  clothes,  and  only  three 
crowns  in  his  pocket.  By  his  sudden  rupture  with 
Lamennais  he  gave  up  not  only  intellectual  leader- 
ship but  daily  bread.  In  this  critical  hour  he 
formed  a  resolution  becoming  to  a  priest,  and  he 
placed  himself  under  his  Archbishop's  orders. 
In  mind,  character,  political  opinions,  and  theo- 
logical  doctrines,    Mgr.    de    Quelen    was    as  far 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        63 

removed  as  possible  from  Lacordaire.  But  for  the 
young  priest,  whose  vocation  he  had  discerned 
better  than  had  his  masters  at  Saint-Sulpice,  he 
felt  that  peculiar  tenderness  which  we  sometimes 
feel  for  natures  that  are  farthest  removed  from  our 
own.  To  him  he  was  the  gifted  and  engaging 
son  whose  errors  a  father  may  deplore  but  whose 
return  he  welcomes  with  joy.  He  received  Lacor- 
daire with  open  arms.  "You  have  need  of  a 
baptism,"  he  said  to  him,  "  I  will  give  it  you"  ; 
and  he  gave  him  back  his  chaplaincy  at  the  Con- 
vent of  the  Visitation. 

Thus  after  that  brilliant  campaign  of  the 
11  Avenir,"  in  which  his  name  had  made  so  much 
noise,  and  to  which  his  talent  had  given  so  much 
brilliancy,  he  returned  to  his  humble  starting- 
point  as  a  catechist  of  young  ladies.  He  found 
himself  once  again  in  his  modest  room  in  the  Rue 
Saint-Etienne  du  Mont,  as  lonely  as  he  had  been 
before,  having  broken  both  with  his  old  and  his 
new  associates,  without  a  guide  and  without  a 
supporter,  but  having  lost  that  robust  self-confi- 
dence which  animated  him  when,  three  years 
earlier,  he  thought  of  sailing  for  America.  The 
first  ages  of  the  Church  were  acquainted  with  that 
melancholy  of  men  who,  vowed  to  the  service  of 
God,  felt  themselves  seized  with  discouragement 
in  the  midst  of  their  task,  and  asked  themselves 
whether  the  hand  that  upheld  them  had  not 
abandoned  them.  They  called  it  acedia;  it  was 
that  sadness  of  the  cloisters,  the  gloom  of  which 
was  feared  by  virgins  and  monks,  and  from  which 
they  asked  to  be  delivered  as  from  the  demon  that 
goeth  in  the  noonday — dcemonio  meridiano.  They 
also  called  it  by  another  name — athumia,  lack  of 
soul — for  in  no  language  have  words  ever  been 
wanting  to  express  all  the  variations  of  human  grief. 
It  was  this  lack  of  soul  from  which  Lacordaire 


64  LACORDAIRE 

suffered,  and  we  still  find  the  echo  of  the  sufferings 
through  which  he  passed  in  the  pages  which  he 
dictated  from  his  death-bed  :  "  Did  I  then  commit 
only  faults?  That  public  life,  those  impassioned 
contests,  that  journey  to  Rome,  those  friendships 
once  so  strong  and  to-day  so  broken,  the  convic- 
tions of  my  whole  life  as  a  young  man  and  a 
priest,  were  they  nothing  but  a  foolish  dream? 
Would  it  not  have  been  better  for  me  to  have  been 
installed  as  a  curate  in  the  most  obscure  parish, 
and  there  to  have  called  ignorant  souls  to  God  by 
the  performance  of  simple  duties?  There  are 
moments  when  doubt  seizes  us,  when  what  has 
seemed  to  us  fruitful  appears  to  be  sterile,  when 
what  we  have  judged  to  be  great  is  no  longer  more 
than  a  shadow  without  reality.  I  was  in  that 
state  ;  everything  around  me  fell  into  ruin  ;  and 
I  needed  to  gather  together  the  remnants  of  a 
secret  natural  energy  in  order  to  save  myself  from 
despair." 

In  speaking  of  those  broken  friendships,  Lacor- 
daire  doubtless  looked  back  in  thought  to  the 
disagreement  which  their  different  attitudes  re- 
garding Lamennais  had  brought  about  between 
himself  and  Montalembert.  By  his  flight  from 
La  Chesnaye  Lacordaire  had,  in  fact,  freed  his 
soul.  But  that  of  Montalembert  had  remained 
enchained.  In  vain,  even  from  Dinan,  and  before 
he  started  for  Paris,  had  Lacordaire  written  to 
inform  him  of  the  decision  he  had  taken.  He 
soon  had  the  pain  of  knowing  that  that  decision 
had  not  been  approved  of  by  Montalembert,  and 
that  the  latter  had  even  expressed  himself  in  rather 
harsh  terms  on  what  he  called  a  desertion.  Then 
the  two  friends  engaged  in  a  correspondence  (for 
Montalembert  left  a  short  time  after  for  Germany) 
some  fragments  of  which  have  been  published  in 
an  appendix  to  M.  Foisset's  work,  a  correspond- 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        65 

ence  admirable  in  the  eagerness  displayed  by 
Lacordaire  in  trying  to  rescue  a  soul  that  was 
dear  to  him  from  an  influence  whose  danger  he 
measured  better.  The  man  who  was  the  object 
of  this  eagerness  retained  a  tender  memory  of  it, 
which,  many  years  afterwards,  he  expressed  in 
moving  terms.  "Iwas  angry  with  my  friend," 
wrote  Montalembert,  "  for  having  taken  another 
course,  more  public  and  more  decisive.  I  rashly 
reproached  him  with  forgetting  the  liberal  aspira- 
tions whose  breath  had  kindled  us  both.  When 
at  last  I  yielded,  it  was  but  slowly,  as  it  were 
regretfully,  and  not  without  having  distressed 
that  over-generous  heart.  The  struggle  had  been 
too  hard.  I  speak  of  it  with  confusion,  with 
remorse,  for  I  did  not  then  do  him  all  the  justice 
he  deserved,  and  I  expiate  that  fault  by  confessing 
it." 

The  struggle  had,  in  truth,  begun  immediately 
after  the  day  when  Lacordaire,  after  leaving 
Rome,  answered  Montalembert's  reproaches  by 
these  prophetic  words  :  "Charles,  heed  well  what 
I  am  going  to  say  to  you  :  if  M.  de  Lamennais 
carries  out  his  new  plan,  remember  that  a  great 
number  of  friends  and  fellow-workers  will  desert 
him,  and  that  when  he  is  deceived  by  the  Liberals 
in  an  action  that  has  no  possibility  of  success, 
there  are  no  words  sad  enough  to  express  what 
will  happen."  It  was  this  plan  of  which  Lacor- 
daire, in  the  midst  of  the  sincere  tergiversations 
of  Lamennais,  perceived  the  almost  fatal  issue. 
He  feared  that  Montalembert  would  be  carried 
away  by  the  chivalrous  and  generous  side  of  his 
nature,  would  be  associated  with  it  in  spite  of 
himself,  and  would  be  drawn  into  a  path  every  step 
on  which  would  make  it  more  difficult  to  return. 
Accordingly  he  endeavoured  to  stop  him  at  the 
outset,  and  in  order  to  keep  him  back  he  displayed 


66  LACORDAIRE 


all  the  power  of  an  eloquence  whose  tones 
come  from  the  heart.  Those  letters  of  Lacor- 
daire  to  Montalembert  show  an  almost  incredible 
ardour  ;  they  deserve  to  be  cited  among  the  finest 
and  most  touching  that  the  love  of  souls  has  ever 
inspired.  "  Alas  !  "  he  wrote  to  him,  "  what 
demon  has  slipped  between  us  and  prevented  us 
from  understanding  one  another,  we  who  under- 
stood one  another  so  well  ?  Have  centuries  come 
between  what  we  were  and  what  we  are  ?  .  .  .  You 
do  not  know  either  the  immensity  of  my  pain  or 
that  of  my  friendship.  Alas  !  whom  have  I  loved 
if  not  you  ?  Without  you  and  the  Church,  of  what 
account  would  be  all  that  happens  and  all  that  will 
happen  ?  Strangers  understand  me  and  they  do 
me  justice.  But  you  !  Is  it  possible  that  my 
real  thoughts  cannot  reach  you  ?  My  entire 
life  is  yours.  I  would  be  happy  to-day  if 
you  were  happy.  You  alone  are  lacking  to  my 
happiness.  It  is  you  whom  I  seek  and  whom  I 
ask  from  God.  You  are  myself ;  you  are  my 
friend,  my  brother,  my  sister ;  I  have  cared 
too  much  for  you  to  be  able  to  be  happy  without 
you." 

What  Lacordaire  wished  to  obtain  was  that 
Montalembert  should  pledge  himself,  as  he  him- 
self had  just  done,  in  a  public  letter,  to  follow 
solely  and  absolutely  the  doctrine  laid  down  in  the 
Encyclical,  and  to  do  nothing  or  approve  of  nothing 
that  was  not  in  conformity  with  that  doctrine. 
He  wished  this  declaration  to  be  sent  by  him 
directly  to  Rome,  and,  in  order  to  persuade  him  to 
this,  he  sent  him  a  letter  written  in  characters  of 
fire,  in  which  he  summed  up  the  arguments  he 
had  already  employed,  but  in  which  he  endeavoured 
above  all  to  move  him  by  an  appeal  to  his  tender- 
ness. "  You  know  whether  I  love  you,"  he  said  to 
him.     "  You  know  whether  I  am  ashamed  of  any- 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        67 

thing  when  it  is  a  question  of  you.  I  kiss  the 
dust  of  your  feet ;  I  want  no  other  fate  than  to 
serve  you  eternally  as  the  vilest  slave,  but  allow 
me,  as  the  price  of  my  humiliations,  to  tell  you 
the  entire  truth.  On  this  moment  depends  your 
life  and  perhaps  your  eternity.  If  you  remain  in 
the  paths  of  revolt,  the  world  and  God  will  repel 
you  for  ever.  Repentance  alone,  withdrawal,  a 
less  political  and  more  real  religion,  the  most 
explicit  separation  from  the  past — that  is  what  can 
save  you.  .  .  .  My  heart  melts  as  I  speak  to  you  ; 
I  feel  that  I  love  you  enough  to  die  for  you. 
Listen  to  that  voice  which  you  have  despised  too 
much,  and  which  has  so  often  warned  you  of 
what  I  saw  was  going  to  happen.  Charles,  my 
dear,  my  sweet  friend,  once  more  I  entreat  you  on 
my  knees,  in  the  most  violent  transport  of  love 
that  a  creature  can  feel  for  a  creature,  in  the  most 
profound  forgetfulness  of  myself ;  I  kiss  your 
feet,  I  moisten  them  with  my  tears ;  I  bring 
together  again  all  my  caresses  of  the  past  three 
years,  all  my  griefs  for  you,  all  my  joys,  all  my 
humiliations,  which  latter  I  prefer  to  all  else;  I 
hold  you  to  my  heart,  intoxicated  by  friendship 
and  by  desire  for  your  salvation,  and  I  order  you 
to  obey  me.  If  you  do  not  obey  me,  there  must 
be  a  great  curse  on  your  head.  Adieu  ;  I  want 
you  to  write  to  me  at  once,  to  write  at  once  to 
the  Holy  Father,  and  to  send  me  a  copy  of  your 
letter." 

We  can  understand  that,  even  after  thirty  years 
and  more  had  passed,  Montalembert  could  not 
read  these  letters  again  "  without  an  emotion  that 
no  words  can  express,"  and  that  he  blamed  him- 
self for  the  too  prolonged  resistance  which  he  had 
made  to  these  pathetic  entreaties.  "In  this  per- 
sistent struggle  for  the  salvation  of  a  loved  soul," 
it  was  Lacordaire  who  won,  and  in  the  month  of 


68  LACORDAIRE 


December,  1834,  Montalembert  ended  by  resolving 
to  write  the  letter  which  Lacordaire  requested. 
The  struggle  had  lasted  for  three  years,  three 
years  during  which  Lacordaire  would  have  felt 
to  an  extraordinary  degree  the  cooling  of  so 
tender  a  friendship  if  he  had  not  found  unexpected 
help  upon  his  path. 

At  the  epoch  when  he  whom  the  Church  to-day 
calls  Saint  Jerome,  but  who  was  then  still  named 
Eusebius  Hieronymus,  left  the  desert  of  Chalcis 
to  return  to  Rome  after  having,  with  penitence  and 
tears,  overcome  the  ardours  of  his  own  fiery  naturej 
a  widow,  recently  converted  to  Christianity,  who 
bore  a  name  illustrious  in  Roman  annals,  Marcella, 
the  daughter  of  Albinus,  had  made  her  sumptuous 
palace  on  the  Aventine  Mount  into  a  place  of 
pious  assembly.  Personally  she  lived  there  the 
simplest  of  lives,  always  clothed  in  brown  gar- 
ments, and  she  had  opened  there  an  oratory  where 
Christian  ladies  came  to  pray.  "  When  the 
affairs  of  the  Church  constrained  me  to  come  to 
Rome,"  the  saint  has  written,  "  though  out  of  a 
discretion  that  I  believed  necessary  for  my  own 
salvation,  I  avoided  the  company  of  those  great 
ladies  whose  piety  then  caused  so  much  noise, 
she  showed,  to  make  use  of  the  apostle's  ex- 
pression, so  persistent  and  at  the  same  time  so 
touching  an  importunity,  that  she  forced  me  in 
her  favour  to  break  the  rule  I  had  prescribed  for 
myself."  In  fact  Jerome  passed  the  three  years  of 
his  stay  at  Rome  under  Marcella's  roof,  and  more 
than  once  during  these  three  years,  in  the  course 
of  the  vehement  controversies  in  which  he  found 
himself  engaged,  Marcella  had  an  opportunity  of 
exercising  her  gentle  and  prudent  influence  upon 
him.  "  Marcella,"  he  said,  "  had  wished  to 
place  her  hand  upon  my  mouth  to  prevent  me 
from  speaking  "  ;  and  in  another  letter:  "  Often  my 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        69 

attitude  towards  her  was  changed,  and  from  being 
a  master,  I  became  a  disciple."  But  as  Marcella 
had  to  a  sovereign  degree  (it  is  Jerome  who  is  still 
speaking)  a  delicate  tact  for  the  proprieties,  she 
always  put  forth  her  ideas,  even  those  which  she 
owed  solely  to  the  penetration  of  her  own  mind, 
as  having  been  suggested  to  her  either  by  some- 
body else  or  by  Jerome  himself. 

At  the  end  of  three  years,  however,  Jerome  left 
that  palace  on  the  Aventine  Mount  which  had 
been  transformed  into  a  convent,  as  well  as  Rome 
itself,  always  pre-eminently  the  elegant  and  let- 
tered city,  something  like  the  Paris  of  to-day,  to 
betake  himself  to  Jerusalem  in  order  there  to  put 
into  practice,  in  agreement  with  her  who  was  one 
day  to  be  called  Saint  Paula,  his  great  design  of 
the  monastic  life.  But  during  the  twenty  years  that 
Jerome  and  Marcella  dwelt  apart  from  one  another, 
a  pious  correspondence  consoled  them,  and  "if 
their  bodies  were  separated,  their  souls  were 
united."  Thus  when  Marcella  died,  Jerome  wrote 
to  the  Virgin  Principia,  who  had  closed  her  eyes, 
one  of  those  letters  which  the  Christians  of  the 
primitive  Church  communicated  to  one  another, 
and  which  were  the  equivalent  of  an  obituary 
notice  of  our  own  days.  In  that  letter  he  sounded 
the  praises  of  her  whom  he  called  "our  Marcella," 
because  "we  have  both  alike  loved  her,  and  we 
have  both  alike  shared  her  affection,  "and  he  made 
known  to  others  that  treasure  which  they  had  had 
the  happiness  of  enjoying  for  so  long.  Less  known 
than  Paula,  less  publicly  associated  than  she  with 
the  life  and  austerities  of  the  great  propagator  of 
the  monastic  idea,  the  pious  and  discreet  Marcella 
had  not  held  a  less  place  in  the  saint's  life.  At 
once  a  cenobite  and  a  great  lady,  having  accepted 
most  of  the  obligations  of  the  monastic  life,  yet 
without   having  entirely  withdrawn  herself  from 


70  LACORDAIRE 


the  world,  she  was  the  first  type  of  what  an  irony 
that  has  little  justification  has  sometimes  called  a 
mother  of  the  Church. 

Allowing  for  the  difference  of  times  and  persons, 
there  is  more  than  one  resemblance  between  the 
intimacy  between  Jerome  and  Marcella  and  that 
which,  at  the  epoch  in  his  life  which  we  have 
reached,  was  about  to  be  formed  between  Lacor- 
daire  and  Madame  Swetchine.  During  Lacor- 
daire's  lifetime  Madame  Swetchine's  name  was 
hardly  known.  I  am  tempted  to  say  that  it  is  a 
little  too  well  known  to-day.  I  am  not,  indeed, 
convinced  that  those  who  have  her  memory  at 
heart  have  done  her  the  best  service  by  drawing  her 
out  of  the  friendly  shadow  in  which  she  had  always 
lived,  and  exposing  her  to  the  gaze  of  an  indifferent 
public.  I  also  doubt  whether  it  was  necessary  to 
devote  to  her  life  and  works  the  contents  of  two 
octavo  volumes.  In  order  to  make  her  known, 
there  would  have  sufficed  one  of  those  discreet 
publications  which  are  intended  only  for  friends, 
but  which  little  by  little  make  their  way  in  the 
world,  revealing  hidden  merits  to  those  who  are 
curious  to  inquire  into  them,  but  not  desiring  to 
impose  them  by  main  force  on  general  admira- 
tion. Similarly,  a  severer  choice  of  the  produc- 
tions to  which  she  herself  attached  no  importance 
would  perhaps  have  given  a  juster  idea  of  the 
delicacy  and  elevation  of  her  mind.  This  severity 
would  have  been  preferable  to  the  somewhat  rash 
affirmation  that  in  her  works  "  touches  worthy 
of  La  Bruyere  abound  by  the  side  of  elevated 
passages  worthy  of  Saint  Augustine."  "To 
write  in  pencil  is  to  speak  in  a  whisper,"  Madame 
Swetchine  herself  has  gracefully  said.  Now, 
almost  all  her  "works"  were  written  in  pencil, 
and  by  making  them  speak  in  loud  tones,  by 
substituting    printer's    ink    for    the    pencil,    her 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        71 

editors  do  not  seem  to  have  understood  the  in- 
direct advice  she  gave  them. 

It  is  but  rarely  that  an  excess  of  abundance  in 
publications  and  an  abuse  of  superlatives  in 
eulogy  do  not  give  rise  to  a  certain  reaction.  The 
reaction  took  place,  in  truth,  in  the  form  of  an 
ironical  and  malicious  article  by  Sainte-Beuve, 
from  which  alone  many  persons  to-day  know  any- 
thing of  Madame  Swetchine.  It  would  not  be  just, 
however,  if  Sainte-Beuve's  facile  malice  seriously 
wronged  that  proud  and  original  figure.  Born 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  married  to  a 
husband  twenty-five  years  older  than  herself, 
brought  up  outside  all  practical  religion,  but 
attracted  to  Christianity  by  the  purity  of  her 
nature,  she  had  the  courage,  in  spite  of  Joseph 
de  Maistre's  sarcasms  (though  he  was  to  some 
slight  extent  her  guide),  to  search  out  the  truth  for 
herself  in  a  long  course  of  theological  reading 
and  study,  from  which  she  emerged  a  Catholic. 
Attracted  towards  our  country  by  a  natural  pre- 
dilection at  an  epoch  when  mutual  sympathy 
necessarily  drew  the  two  nations  close  together, 
she  passed  forty  years  of  her  life  here.  During 
those  forty  years  she  lived  in  the  centre  of  a 
small,  select  band  of  men  whom  she  had  been 
able  to  gather  around  her — Cuvier,  Montalem- 
bert,  Father  Ravignan,  Alexis  de  Tocqueville, 
and  others  whom  I  could  name.  People  have 
sneered  at  this  salon  in  the  Rue  Saint-Domi- 
nique, by  the  side  of  which  (just  like  Marcella  in 
her  house  on  the  Aventine  Mount)  she  had 
established  a  chapel  to  which  young  women  in 
elegant  costumes  went  furtively  to  ask  in  prayer 
for  help  against  the  temptations  of  the  world. 
But  it  is  none  the  less  one  of  those  places  in 
which,  over  a  long  period  of  time,  the  most  dis- 
tinguished men  have   conversed   on   the  noblest 


7*  LACORDAIRE 


topics.  What  we  should  recognise  and  greet 
in  Madame  Swetchine,  rather  than  a  rival  of 
La  Bruyere  or  Saint  Augustine  (although  dis- 
tinguished and  touching  works  have  come  from 
her  pen),  is,  as  has  been  excellently  said,  "an 
accomplished  Christian  who  at  the  same  time  was 
able  with  exquisite  delicacy  to  understand  the 
relations  of  her  faith  with  the  manners  and 
sentiments  of  the  society  in  which  she  lived." 
This  is  the  finest  of  eulogies  for  a  woman  who 
never  aimed  at  the  sanctity  of  a  Paula,  and  if 
she  deserved  it  in  anything,  it  is  assuredly  in 
her  relations  with  Lacordaire,  as  the  publication 
of  their  correspondence  has  made  them  known 
to  us. 

Lacordaire  had  been  introduced  to  Madame 
Swetchine  by  Montalembert.  "I  approached," 
he  has  written,  "to  the  banks  of  her  soul  as  if  I 
were  a  waif  broken  by  the  waves.  ...  By  what 
feeling  was  she  thus  led  to  give  me  her  time  and 
her  advice?  Doubtless  to  some  extent  sympathy 
inclined  her  ;  but,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  she  was 
upheld  by  the  thought  of  a  mission  which  she 
had  to  fulfil  to  my  soul.  She  saw  me  surrounded 
with  perils,  guided  so  far  by  solitary  aspirations, 
without  experience  of  the  world,  with  no  other 
compass  than  the  purity  of  my  views,  and  she 
believed  that  in  making  herself  my  special  Provi- 
dence she  fulfilled  one  of  God's  wishes."  In 
these  few  lines  Lacordaire  has  characterised  with 
an  exact  touch  the  nature  of  the  peculiar  relation 
which  began  at  this  date  between  Madame  Swet- 
chine and  himself,  and  which  was  to  last  for 
twenty-seven  years.  On  Madame  Swetchine's 
side  this  relation  had  something  maternal  and  a 
little  protecting  ;  on  Lacordaire's  side  something 
confident  and  frank.  In  more  than  one  circum- 
stance she  was  indeed  his  compass.     With  her 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        73 

sure  mind,  her  woman's  tact,  her  knowledge  of 
the  world,  she  prevented  him  from  unconsidered 
resolutions,  from  too  hasty  movements,  and  from 
untimely  steps.  Just  as  Marcella  sometimes  put 
her  hand  on  Jerome's  mouth  so  as  to  prevent 
him  from  uttering  imprudent  words,  so  Madame 
Swetchine  (the  image  is  borrowed  from  herself) 
held  Lacordaire  by  the  flap  of  his  coat  so  as  to 
moderate  his  too  rapid  or  too  sudden  movements. 
It  is  in  this  spirit  of  gentle  authority  that  she 
appears  in  their  correspondence,  and  I  do  not 
think  that  more  original  letters  have  ever  been 
exchanged  between  a  woman  and  a  priest.  There 
is  nothing  in  them  that  recalls  the  spiritual  corre- 
spondences we  know,  such  as  that  of  Bossuet 
with  Sister  Cornuau,  or  that  of  Fenelon  with 
Madame  de  la  Maisonfort.  They  are  not  letters 
of  piety,  and  still  less  are  they  letters  of  direction, 
for  it  was  rather  Madame  Swetchine  who  was  the 
director.  One  could  say  that  they  are  ecclesiastical 
letters,  for  all  the  questions  that  have  engaged 
the  Catholic  Church  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
are  handled  in  them  with  great  elevation  of  view, 
and  that  at  the  same  time  they  are  letters  of  the 
heart,  for  in  them  the  expression  of  personal 
feelings  occupies  a  large  space. 

In  truth  Madame  Swetchine  surrounded  Lacor- 
daire's  life  with  that  affectionate  solicitude  which 
was  all  the  more  necessary  to  him  as  he  was  soon 
to  lose  his  mother.  At  one  period  even,  he 
almost  went  to  live  near  her,  in  her  house  on  the 
Aventine  Mount.  But  if  their  intimacy  was  never 
carried  so  far,  never,  in  all  the  vicissitudes  of  life, 
did  Madame  Swetchine's  attachment  fail  Lacor- 
daire ;  it  failed  neither  the  obscure  priest  nor  the 
famous  preacher,  neither  the  melancholy  hermit 
of  Soreze  nor  the  martial  Dominican.  This  con- 
stant attachment  had  in  it  nothing  exalted  and 


74 LACORDAIRE 

nothing  complaisant.  There  is  nothing  flattering, 
nothing  excessive  in  the  numerous  letters  which 
she  wrote  him.  Madame  Swetchine  judges  the 
man  she  cares  for ;  she  warns  him  ;  some- 
times she  blames  him  ;  but  nothing  succeeds  in 
detaching  her  from  him.  "It  would  have  been 
my  happiness,"  she  once  wrote  to  him,  "always 
to  have  approved  of  you,  but  my  tenderness  does 
not  need  that,  and  perhaps  the  violent  blows  to 
which  you  subject  it  renew  a  first  adoption  with 
the  greater  strength.  Like  Rachel,  I  have  some- 
times been  able  to  call  you  the  child  of  my  sorrow, 
and  you  know  that  suffering  does  not  discourage 
poor  mothers." 

It  is,  in  truth,  with  quite  a  filial  confidence 
that  Lacordaire  unbosoms  himself  to  Madame 
Swetchine  about  everything  that  concerns  him. 
He  has  nothing  hidden  from  her,  neither  his 
troubles,  nor  his  doubts,  nor  his  hopes,  nor  his 
discouragements.  Constantly  he  speaks  of  him- 
self with  touching  humility.  "I  am  thirty-four 
years  of  age,"  he  writes  to  her,  "and  it  is  true  to 
say  that  in  no  respect  is  my  education  finished." 
At  the  same  time  he  is  keenly  aware  of  what  in 
his  temperament  is  of  a  nature  to  make  others 
suffer,  and  he  accuses  himself  of  it.  "I  love,  I 
am  certain  of  it,  and  deeply  ;  and  nevertheless  it 
is  true  that  there  is  in  me  something  which  I 
cannot  name  that  causes  pain  to  those  I  love.  It 
is  not  harshness,  for  I  am  gentle  ;  it  is  not  cold- 
ness, for  I  am  vehement.  It  is  something  too 
much  or  too  little  in  my  whole  personality,  a 
certain  difficulty  of  discovering  what  it  is  a 
friend's  heart  needs,  a  habit  of  silence  which 
sometimes  follows  me  without  my  suspecting  it. 
What  a  torture  it  is  to  me  to  speak  !  "  And  he 
envies  the  gift  of  expressing  their  feelings  which 
women  possess.     "Women  have  this  admirable 


RUPTURE  WITH   LAMENNAIS        75 

quality  that  they  can  speak  as  much  as  they 
wish,  in  the  way  they  wish,  with  the  expression 
they  wish.  Their  heart  is  a  spring  which  flows 
naturally.  A  man's  heart,  mine  above  all,  is  like 
one  of  those  volcanoes  whose  lava  only  comes  forth 
at  intervals,  after  a  shock." 

This  reserve  and  apparent  coldness  was  a  feature 
in  Lamennais,  the  contrast  of  which  with  the 
natural  impetuosity  of  his  character  has  often 
been  remarked.  In  vehement  characters  who 
have  early  adopted  the  habit  of  governing  them- 
selves, this  characteristic  is  often  found  ;  reserve 
and  coldness,  at  first  intentional,  become  an 
envelope,  a  veil  from  which  they  cannot  succeed 
in  disengaging  themselves.  But  if  Lacordaire, 
at  any  rate  according  to  his  own  account, 
could  not  speak,  at  least  he  could  write,  and 
Madame  Swetchine  was  to  be  well  rewarded  for  the 
tenderness  which  she  showed  him  by  the  receipt 
of  letters  like  this.  "  Have  therefore  a  little 
compassion  on  my  wild  nature.  I  would  like  to 
change  it,  for  I  feel  my  faults  more  than  ever  in 
proportion  as  Christianity  penetrates  into  my 
soul ;  unhappily  we  desire  more  than  we  do. 
Let  the  confidence  with  which  I  have  always 
spoken  to  you  of  myself  be  a  proof  to  you,  and 
one  unceasingly  renewed,  of  my  affection.  My 
life  in  its  smallest  details  belongs  entirely  to 
you,  and  you  will  never  see  me  take  anything  of 
it  away  from  you.  New  friends  are  little  to  my 
taste.  I  sometimes  feel  that  some  passing  spirit 
attracts  me,  and  that  formerly  I  could  have  loved 
it.  I  hardly  go  further  than  that ;  the  time  has 
come  to  love  God  alone,  and  to  live  with  the 
destinies  that  His  goodness  has  joined  to  us 
in  former  paths."  But  other  spirits  did  pass 
who  pleased  him  and  whom  he  loved.  With 
none,  however,  were  his  relations  as  intimate  and 


76  LACORDAIRE 

as  constant  as  with  Madame  Swetchine.  We 
shall  find  her  intervening  in  more  than  one  im- 
portant decision  in  Lacordaire's  life,  and  before 
resuming  the  narrative  of  that  life  it  is  necessary 
to  explain  the  place  in  it  which  she  will  henceforth 
hold. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  STANISLAS  LECTURES  AND  THE   FIRST 
SERMONS  AT  NOTRE-DAME 

What  Madame  Swetchine's  affection  could  not 
procure  for  Lacordaire  was  an  occupation  for  his 
life.  He  dreamed,  indeed,  of  writing  a  great 
apologetic  work  which  he  would  have  called 
"The  Church  and  the  World  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century."  But  the  plan  was  as  vague  in  his 
mind  as  the  title  would  have  been  ambitious, 
and  a  just  instinct  warned  him  that  he  was  better 
fitted  for  controversy  than  for  doctrinal  exposi- 
tion. Nevertheless,  he  turned  aside  from  every 
proposal  that  could  have  brought  him  back  into 
the  political  arena.  Thus  he  refused  the  editor- 
ship of  the  "  Ami  de  la  Religion  "  and  that  of  the 
"  Univers."  What  attracted  him  was  the  pulpit. 
He  had  even  promised  to  preach  in  several 
churches,  but  before  making  a  serious  beginning 
he  wished  to  make  a  trial.  One  Sunday,  in  May, 
1833,  about  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  when  the 
service  was  over,  a  small  party  of  friends  and 
ecclesiastics  were  invited  to  hear  him  at  Saint 
Roch.  He  was  to  preach  on  the  Finding  of  the 
Cross,  which  was  the  feast  of  the  day.  Madame 
Swetchine  waited  anxiously  in  her  drawing-room 
for  the  return  of  the  friends  whom  she  had  sent  to 
hear  him.  They  came  back  with  long  faces. 
H  He  will  never  be  a  good  preacher,"  said  one  of 
them.     In  truth,  Lacordaire  had  frozen  the  lava 

77 


78  LACORDAIRE 

of  his  eloquence  by  trying  to  confine  it  within  the 
mould  of  the  classical  sermon.  He  himself  was 
as  much  deceived  as  the  others.  "It  is  evident 
to  me,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "that  I  have  not 
enough  physical  strength  nor  enough  flexibility 
of  mind  nor  enough  understanding  of  the  world 
in  which  I  have  lived  and  shall  always  live  a 
solitary  life,  finally,  not  enough  of  anything  that  is 
necessary  to  make  a  preacher  in  the  full  meaning 
of  the  word,"  and  he  excused  himself  from  the 
engagements  he  had  accepted. 

Another  proposal  was  made  to  him  which 
he  accepted,  though  without  eagerness — that  of 
giving  a  series  of  lectures  on  religious  subjects 
to  the  pupils  of  the  Stanislas  College.  To  address 
himself  to  youth,  to  make,  in  order  to  replace  the 
old,  a  generation  of  Catholics  who  would  be  ani- 
mated by  a  new  spirit,  had  always  been  one  of  his 
favourite  thoughts.  The  opportunity  was  offered 
him.  He  seized  it.  The  first  lecture  took  place 
on  January  19th,  1834.  From  the  third  of  the 
series  onwards,  the  outside  public  attended  in 
crowds.  Chateaubriand,  Lamartine,  Victor  Hugo, 
Berryer  (who  arriving  late  one  day  was  obliged  to 
enter  by  the  window)  arranged  to  meet  there,  and 
what  perhaps  was  better,  so  also  did  all  the 
" thinking  youth,"  to  employ  an  expression  of 
Maurice  de  Guerin,  who  was  himself  enthusiastic 
in  his  attendance  at  these  lectures.  "  This  elo- 
quence, this  inspiration,  is  unprecedented,"  he 
wrote  to  a  friend.  "  Nothing  else  is  talked  of  in 
the  philosophical  and  religious  world." 

It  was  precisely  this  talk  which  became  fatal 
to  Lacordaire.  The  former  contributor  to  the 
"Avenir"  was  still  suspect  to  a  narrow  ortho- 
doxy. Without  it  being  possible  definitely  to 
impeach  any  of  his  doctrines,  the  boldness  and 
unseemliness  of  his  language  were  declared  to  be 


THE  STANISLAS   LECTURES  79 

a  cause  of  scandal.  He  was  reproached  for  having 
said,  perhaps  not  in  very  good  taste,  "  that  the 
first  tree  of  liberty  had  been  planted  by  God  in 
the  earthly  Paradise,"  and  also  of  having  made 
use  of  the  expression,  "the  Christian  Republic." 
He  was  denounced  to  the  Archbishop,  to  Rome, 
and  to  the  Government.  The  Government, 
through  M.  Guizot's  mouth,  declared  that  it 
looked  upon  the  lectures  without  distrust.  Rome 
referred  the  matter  back  to  the  Archbishop,  but 
the  Archbishop  proved  weak.  Alarmed  by  the 
clamour,  divided  between  his  predilection  for 
Lacordaire,  whom  he  liked  but  did  not  under- 
stand, and  the  instinctive  fright  with  which  his 
own  turn  of  mind  inspired  him,  he  wished  neither 
to  support  him  nor  to  desert  him,  and  not  being 
able  by  indirect  means  to  induce  him  voluntarily 
to  give  up  his  lectures,  which  were  suspended 
during  the  spring,  he  wished  to  impose  the  condi- 
tion that  he  should  write  them  out  beforehand  and 
submit  them  to  the  two  Vicars-General. 

Lacordaire  was  mortified  by  this  distrust,  and 
wrote  a  vigorous  letter  to  Mgr.  de  Quelen.  "  Mon- 
seigneur,"  he  began,  u  I  am  about  to  complain 
to  you  against  yourself."  He  then  recalled  the 
pledges  of  submission  and  orthodoxy  which  he 
had  given  after  his  separation  from  Lamennais, 
pledges  that  had  seemed  sufficient  to  the  Arch- 
bishop himself,  for  he  had  allowed  him  to  resume 
his  public  preaching.  He  next  passed  in  review 
the  various  complaints  that  had  been  made 
against  his  preaching,  and  after  demonstrating 
their  hollowness,  he  ended  with  these  proud 
words:  "I  ask  the  Church,  in  the  person  of  my 
bishop,  to  grant  me  her  confidence,  to  honour  my 
priesthood.  If  she  will  not,  I  shall  have  to  look 
to  myself.  I  am  thirty-two  years  of  age  ;  if  I  had 
remained  in  the  world  I  would  be  in  a  position  to 


8o  LACORDAIRE 

make  myself  respected  when  I  negotiated  either 
on  my  own  behalf  or  on  behalf  of  others  ;  because 
I  sacrificed  my  life  to  the  Church,  it  is  not  just 
that  I  should  be  the  toy  of  the  basest  intrigues 
and  of  the  ill-will  of  a  faction  which  does  not 
forgive  me  for  not  giving  up  to  itself  my  existence 
and  my  priestly  office.  Monseigneur,  I  ask  justice 
from  you  ;  I  claim  the  priest's  sole  wealth, 
the  priest's  sole  honour — liberty  of  evangelical 
speech,  liberty  to  preach  Jesus  Christ,  until  it  is 
proved  that  I  disregard  the  Divine  orthodoxy  which 
is  the  first  thing  of  all,  and  which,  with  God's 
help,  I  will  never  disregard,  at  any  rate  through 
self-will." 

The  tone  of  this  letter  was  rather  violent 
from  a  priest  to  an  Archbishop,  and  if  Madame 
Swetchine  had  not  been  in  Russia,  she  would  cer- 
tainly have  softened  it.  Mgr.  de  Quelen  was,  on  his 
side,  hurt  by  what  he  called  a  demand  for  surrender, 
and  he  persisted  in  requiring  the  preliminary 
examination  which  he  had  imposed.  Rather  than 
accept  this,  Lacordaire  preferred  not  to  resume  his 
lectures.  "I  had  counted  on  two  men,"  he  re- 
plied; "the  first  I  left  because  he  betrayed  the 
hopes  of  all ;  the  second  failed  me.  Henceforward 
I  count  only  on  God." 

Lacordaire's  position  again  became  critical.  If 
he  was  not  suspended  as  a  priest,  his  words  as 
a  preacher  were  placed  on  the  Index.  His  zeal 
was  reduced  to  idleness,  and  his  ardour  to  silence. 
He  was  passing  through  one  of  those  moments  of 
discouragement  when,  to  use  his  own  fine  expres- 
sion, he  felt  his  soul  falling  under  him  like  a  horse 
under  its  rider.  What  was  he  to  do?  What  was 
he  to  decide?  In  what  occupation  would  he  hence- 
forth employ  his  sacerdotal  life?  Lacordaire  was 
sadly  asking  himself  this  question  one  cold  morn- 
ing in  January,  1835,  as  ne  was  walking  in  the 


THE  STANISLAS   LECTURES  81 

Luxembourg  Garden,  when  he  met  an  ecclesiastical 
acquaintance.  "  What  are  you  doing?"  said  the 
latter  to  him.  u  You  ought  to  see  the  Archbishop, 
and  come  to  an  understanding  with  him."  Lacor- 
daire  continued  his  walk.  Some  paces  further  on 
he  met  another  priest.  u  You  are  wrong  not  to  see 
the  Archbishop,"  said  the  other  to  him.  "  I  have 
reasons  for  thinking  that  it  would  be  very  easy  for 
you  to  come  to  terms."  "  Being  somewhat  super- 
stitious in  regard  to  Providence,"  adds  Lacor- 
daire,  relating  this  anecdote,  "I  turned  slowly 
towards  Saint  Michael's  Convent,  where  the 
Archbishop  was  then  staying."  Luckily  the 
door  was  opened  to  him  by  one  of  the  choir 
nuns,  who,  well  disposed  to  him  because  "  every- 
body was  against  him,"  took  it  on  herself  to 
introduce  him  to  the  Archbishop,  who  was  at 
home  to  nobody.  At  the  end  of  some  minutes' 
conversation,  the  Archbishop,  fixing  a  scrutinising 
eye  on  Lacordaire,  said  brusquely  to  him:  "1 
am  thinking  of  asking  you  to  preach  at  Notre- 
Dame ;  would  you  accept  ? "  Lacordaire  asked 
for  twenty-four  hours  for  consideration,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  twenty-four  hours  he  accepted. 

What  then  had  happened  ?  Lacordaire  explains 
this  abrupt  change  of  view  by  the  coincidence 
between  his  unexpected  visit  to  the  Archbishop 
and  the  sending  to  the  latter  of  a  Memorandum 
in  which  the  Abbe  Liautard,  the  founder  of  the 
Stanislas  College,  sharply  criticised  the  Arch- 
bishop's administration,  and  charged  Mgr.  de 
Quelen's  conduct  with  lack  of  intelligence  and 
weakness  in  the  matter  of  the  Stanislas  lectures. 
Without  denying  that  this  coincidence  may  have 
had  something  to  do  with  the  abruptness  of  the 
Archbishop's  decision,  it  is,  however,  possible  to 
give  him  the  credit  of  having  been  determined  by 
considerations  of  another  sort.     Of  an  irresolute 


82  LACORDAIRE 

character,  but  of  lofty  intellect,  Mgr.  de  Quelen  had 
doubtless  taken  thought  upon  the  responsibilities 
imposed  on  him  by  his  position  in  those  difficult 
times.  A  glance  at  the  mental  and  religious  evo- 
lution that  had  taken  place  since  the  events  of 
July  will  enable  us  better  to  understand  the  effect 
which  those  reflections  might  have  had  upon  him. 
It  is  the  quality  of  revolutions  to  bring  to  the 
surface  of  society  things  which,  whilst  they  are 
hidden,  sleep  in  the  depths  of  its  waters — evil 
instincts,  coarse  appetites,  blind  hatreds — but 
along  with  these,  generous  enthusiasms,  lofty  de- 
votions, heroic  illusions.  Thus  there  has  been 
no  revolution  which  has  not  been  followed  by  a 
religious  crisis,  that  is  to  say,  unless  such  a  crisis 
had  preceded  it.  This  was  precisely  what  took  place 
during  the  first  years  of  the  July  Government. 
For  a  moment  it  was  possible  to  believe  that  the 
Catholic  religion  had  succumbed,  less  under  the 
blows  of  popular  hatred,  than  beneath  the  weight 
of  philosophical  indifference.  A  man  occupying 
a  position  at  the  university,  who  has  had  his  hour 
of  notoriety,  M.  Dubois  (of  the  Loire-Inferieure), 
had  indeed  declared,  during  one  of  his  tours  of 
inspection,  that  "they  had  been  present  at  the 
funeral  of  a  great  cult."  But  if  that  cult  seemed 
to  be  buried,  a  wiser  intellect  than  that  of  M. 
Dubois,  of  the  Loire-Inferieure,  would  not  have 
failed  to  perceive  already  the  symptoms  of  an 
early  resurrection.  For  the  religious  sentiment 
remained  alive.  It  had  not  to  wait  long  before  it 
expressed  itself  anew  in  some  singularly  strange 
manifestations.  Not  to  mention  the  French  church 
of  the  Abbe  Chatel,  the  addresses  at  the  Tait- 
bout  Hall,  of  some  disciples  of  Saint-Simon, 
among  others  Barrault  and  Enfantin,  gave  what 
was  but  a  new  modulation  to  the  eternal  sigh  of 
humanity.      That    "  torment  for   divine    things" 


THE  STANISLAS   LECTURES  83 

also  inspired  voices  that  had  hitherto  uttered  very 
different  words.  There  was  Joseph  Delorme,  ex- 
pressing in  certain  pages  of  ' '  Volupte  "  (pages more 
sincere  than  the  author  was  afterwards  willing  to 
admit),  first,  the  sufferings  of  doubt,  then  the 
ecstasies  of  faith.  There  was  Lelia,  a  former 
abbess  of  Camaldolese  nuns,  who  died  some  years 
before  with  blasphemy  on  her  lips,  who  rose  from 
the  dead  under  the  name  of  Marcia,  and  who  lent 
a  like  eloquence  to  the  expression  of  her  pious 
resignation.  There  were  also,  in  a  quite  different 
world,  politicians  who  stated,  as  Tocqueville  did 
in  his  letters,  the  new  fact  "that  most  Liberals 
recognised  the  political  utility  of  a  religion,  and 
deplored  the  weakness  of  the  religious  spirit 
among  the  populace,"  or  who,  like  M.  Guizot, 
courageously  declared  in  the  tribune,  and  before 
a  hostile  majority,  "  that,  independently  of  all 
political  power,  religion  is  an  eminently  social 
principle,  the  natural  ally  and  the  necessary  prop 
of  all  regular  government,  and  the  first  moral 
force  of  the  country."  Thus  popular  hatred  had 
declined,  philosophical  indifference  passed  out  of 
fashion,  and  thinking  men  began,  in  Michelet's 
fine  expression,  to  ask,  "  Where  is  God?" 

It  was  young  people  especially  who  were  asking 
this  question.  For  some  years  there  had  arisen 
in  the  colleges  and  schools  a  new  generation, 
unacquainted  with  the  prejudices  which  had  been 
excited  against  the  Church  by  her  too  close  alliance 
with  the  Restoration,  still  charmed  with  liberty,  but 
already  eager  for  faith.  For  a  moment  they  had 
listened  to  the  voice  of  the  uAvenir,"  but  that  voice 
had  been  stilled,  and  since  that  moment  there 
had  been  a  great  silence  which  left  them  anxious. 
Where,  then,  was  Catholic  truth  if  it  must  not 
be  sought  in  that  ancient  union  between  Church 
and   Royalty  which   experience   seemed   to   have 


84  LACORDAIRE 

condemned,  and  if  it  was  not  permissible,  either, 
to  ask  it  from  this  new  conception  of  a  bold 
alliance  with  the  people?  To  this  question  no 
voice  gave  them  an  answer.  Yet  they  asked  it 
persistently,  and,  on  two  occasions,  in  1833  and 
in  1834,  a  deputation  of  the  Catholic  young  men 
had  gone,  under  the  lead  of  Frederic  Ozanam, 
to  solicit  from  Mgr.  de  Quelen  the  opening  of 
a  Catholic  teaching,  new  at  least  in  form,  in 
which  sermons  would  be  replaced  by  lectures  on 
the  questions  which  then  agitated  and  roused 
people's  minds.  Ozanam  had  even  designated 
the  Abbe  Lacordaire  as  being,  along  with 
the  Abbe  Bautain,  the  man,  of  all  the  priests 
known  at  least  by  name  to  young  people,  who 
best  could  inaugurate  that  teaching.  The  Arch- 
bishop believed  that  he  would  satisfy  their  desires 
by  appointing  seven  different  preachers  to  ex- 
pound, each  Sunday  in  Lent,  the  fundamental 
truths  of  the  faith  from  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame. 
But  during  the  six  weeks  that  this  new  form  of 
preaching  had  lasted,  the  vast  nave  of  the  cathe- 
dral had  remained  empty,  whilst,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  chapel  of  the  Stanislas  College  was  too 
small  to  hold  the  crowd  whom  Lacordaire  had 
attracted.  It  was  impossible  for  Mgr.  de  Quelen 
not  to  have  been  struck  by  this  contrast,  and  as 
he  was  not  without  a  clear  insight  into  the  state 
of  mind  of  his  time,  and  also  as  at  the  very 
moment  when  Lacordaire  unexpectedly  presented 
himself  before  him  he  was  actually  considering 
the  best  means  of  satisfying  those  young  people, 
it  is  permissible  to  think  that  a  clearer  view  of 
their  needs,  the  memory  of  Ozanam's  choice, 
perhaps  even  the  singular  coincidence  of  this  un- 
expected visit,  had  more  influence  on  his  decision 
than  the  Abbe  Liautard's  attacks. 

Whatever  be  the  case  in  this  respect,  it  was, 


THE  STANISLAS  LECTURES         85 

to  use  Lacordaire's  own  words,  a  solemn  adven- 
ture on  which  he  was  going  to  set  forth.  It  was 
a  question,  in  truth,  of  something  far  more  than 
knowing  whether  his  talent  would  rise  to  the 
level  of  the  place  and  the  audience,  and  whether 
he  was  going  to  recapture  beneath  the  sonorous 
vaults  of  Notre-Dame  the  success  that  he  had 
gained  in  the  crowded  little  chapel  of  the  Stanislas 
College.  Prohibited  in  a  sense  from  public  speak- 
ing, was  this  prohibition  to  be  removed,  and 
would  he  henceforth  be  allowed  to  pursue  without 
any  obstacles  the  great  plan  of  reconciling  the 
Church  and  the  age  which  had  agitated  his 
thoughts  since  his  entrance  into  the  priesthood? 
Such  was  the  far  graver  question  by  which  he 
was  confronted,  and  he  was  about  to  be  judged, 
not  only  by  the  unknown  congregation  of  Notre- 
Dame,  but  by  his  direct  superior,  his  own  Arch- 
bishop, who  would  perhaps  be  all  the  more  diffi- 
cult and  cautious  as  he  was  himself  interested  in 
the  success  of  the  attempt.  Let  Lacordaire  him- 
self relate  how  he  emerged  from  this  formidable 
ordeal. 

"  I  mounted  the  pulpit,  not  without  emotion, 
but  yet  with  firmness,  and  I  began  my  discourse 
with  my  eyes  fixed  on  the  Archbishop,  who  was 
for  me,  after  God,  but  before  the  public,  the  chief 
personage  present.  He  listened  to  me,  his  head 
a  little  lowered,  in  a  state  of  absolute  impassi- 
bility, like  a  man  who  was  not  merely  neither 
judge  nor  spectator,  but  like  one  who  ran  personal 
risks  in  this  solemn  adventure.  When  I  had 
embarked  on  my  subject,  and  my  breast  expanded 
with  the  necessity  of  gaining  hold  of  so  vast  an 
assembly  of  men,  there  escaped  me  one  of  those 
cries  whose  accent  when  it  is  sincere  and  profound 
never  fails  to  move.  The  Archbishop  visibly 
trembled.     A   paleness  which   even    I   could   see 


86  LACORDAIRE 

covered  his  face  ;  he  raised  his  head,  and  cast  an 
astonished  glance  on  me.  I  understood  that  the 
battle  was  won  in  his  mind.  It  was  won,  too,  in 
the  congregation." 

This  cry  of  which  Lacordaire  speaks  is  doubt- 
less the  famous  apostrophe :  "  Assembly,  assembly, 
tell  me  ;  what  do  you  ask  of  me  ?  What  do  you 
want  from  me  ?  The  truth  ?  Then  you  yourselves 
have  it  not.  You  seek  it  then.  You  wish  to  receive 
it.  You  have  come  here  to  be  taught."  But  though 
an  eloquent  exclamation  can  rouse  an  audience,  it 
requires  something  more  to  keep  it.  That  which 
Lacordaire  had  assembled,  perhaps  the  most  con- 
siderable that  a  priest  had  addressed  since  the 
times  of  open-air  preaching,  was  to  remain  faith- 
ful to  him  during  the  whole  of  Lent,  and  to  be 
still  more  numerous  in  the  following  year.  When, 
in  a  few  years,  we  shall  find  Lacordaire  in  full 
possession  of  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame  which  he 
was  destined  to  occupy  for  seven  successive  years, 
it  will  be  the  place  to  show  what  was  new  in  his 
method  of  apologetics,  and,  above  all,  what  a 
revolution,  from  the  purely  literary  point  of  view, 
he  brought  into  pulpit  eloquence.  But  it  is 
necessary  to  note  here  the  prodigious  success  that 
his  first  sermons  had,  and  to  inquire  into  the  cause 
of  that  success. 

"  The  orator  and  the  audience,"  Lacordaire  has 
written,  "are  two  brothers  who  are  born  and  die 
on  the  same  day."  And  he  added  with  melan- 
choly, "  That  is  the  orator's  fate.  This  man,  who 
has  delighted  multitudes,  descends  with  them  into 
the  same  silence.  In  vain  does  posterity  try  to 
hear  his  voice  and  that  of  the  people  who  ap- 
plauded him  ;  both  are  dispelled  in  time  as  sound 
is  dispelled  in  space."  This  audience  at  Notre- 
Dame  was  indeed  Lacordaire's  brother,  or  rather  his 
child,  for  it  was  he  who  created  it,  and  if,  with  the 


THE  STANISLAS   LECTURES         87 

changes  of  age  and  time,  it  still  exists  to-day, 
the  reason  is  because  it  has  received  from  him 
some  sparks  of  an  imperishable  life. 

It  was,  in  the  first  place,  curiosity  that  brought 
it  together.  When  people  learned  that  the  con- 
demned contributor  to  the  "  Avenir,"  the  sus- 
pended preacher  of  the  Stanislas  College,  was 
going  to  preach  from  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame,  it 
became  a  Parisian  event.  At  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning  the  nave  had  been  invaded,  and  some 
worthy  ladies  who,  according  to  their  custom,  had 
arrived  at  nine  o'clock  to  hear  the  Canons'  Mass, 
saw  with  bewilderment  their  usual  places  occupied 
by  men,  a  majority  of  them  young,  whose  be- 
haviour was  hardly  reverent.  To  while  away  the 
leisure  of  waiting,  some  unrolled  the  "  Debats," 
others  the  "  National  "  or  the  "  Constitutionnel." 
One  auditor  who  displayed  himself  in  top-boots, 
had  dismounted  from  a  horse  in  the  cathedral 
place,  and  had  entered  carrying  a  stick  surrounded 
with  a  whip-lash.  If,  at  the  first  words,  this  audience 
were  not  won  over,  some  irreverence  was  to  be 
feared.  But  it  was  won  over  to  such  a  degree 
that  it  thronged  to  each  sermon,  with  greater 
attention  and  in  greater  numbers.  It  was  neces- 
sary to  erect  barriers  and  to  establish  a  service  of 
order.  The  curious  had  become  attentive,  and 
the  indifferent  respectful.  This  concourse  of 
hearers  never  failed  Lacordaire,  and,  up  to  the 
end  of  his  career  as  a  preacher,  no  one  has  had  in 
the  same  degree  the  gift  of  attracting  and  moving 
crowds.  For  he  at  once  divined  the  language  it 
was  necessary  to  speak  to  the  children  of  a 
proud  and  anxious  age.  He  thoroughly  under- 
stood that  the  time  had  passed  in  which,  as 
it  has  been  said,  "the  Church,  catechising  a 
childish  society,  laid  down  both  the  question 
and  the  answer,"  and  that  he  must  not  take  a 


LACORDAIRE 


tone  of  authority  with  those  hearers  at  Notre- 
Dame  who  arrived  with  their  minds  full  of  a 
crowd  of  objections.  Thus,  he  did  not  say  to 
them,  "My  brethren,"  but  "Gentlemen."  He 
spoke  to  them  as  an  equal  to  equals,  or,  if  he 
raised  himself  at  moments  above  them,  it  was  not 
as  a  priest,  but  as  a  man,  imitating  the  noble 
pride  of  a  movement  known  to  Saint  Paul,  and 
showing  them  that  there  was  nothing  in  them 
which  he  had  not  a  right  to  claim  to  a  similar  or 
even  to  a  higher  degree.  "  You  are  Frenchmen," 
he  said  to  them,  "I  am  one  like  you.  Philo- 
sophers, I  am  one  like  you.  Free  and  proud,  I 
am  more  so  than  you."  He  did  not  treat  them 
with  any  skilful  reserve,  and  sometimes  he  repri- 
manded them  "for  coming  to  a  cathedral  to  hear 
the  Divine  word,  with  their  hearts  puffed  up,  and 
as  judges."  Sometimes,  on  the  contrary,  he  praised 
those  sons  of  the  eighteenth  century,  educated  in 
the  arrogant  thought  of  their  age,  for  the  marks 
of  involuntary  respect  which  the  sanctity  of  the 
place  forced  from  them,  and  for  the  instinct  which 
made  them  bow  their  heads  at  the  moment  when 
priestly  hands  elevated  the  Sacred  Host.  Or  he 
penetrated  with  tender  clear-sightedness  into  the 
depths  of  young  hearts  which  evil  and  melancholy 
had  invaded,  and  he  knew  how  to  point  out  to  them 
the  charm  of  that  indefinable  sadness  of  which 
our  soul  is  the  profound  and  mysterious  source. 

But  what,  after  astonishing  his  hearers,  con- 
quered and  captivated  them,  was  that  they  did  not 
feel  in  this  priest  either  blame  or  contempt  for 
the  age  to  which  they  were  proud  to  belong,  and  the 
great  destiny  of  which  was  one  of  their  dogmas. 
He  loved  it  as  much  as  they  did  ;  like  them  he 
rejoiced  in  being  its  child,  and  far  from  pouring 
out  sterile  regrets  for  the  past,  or  funereal  predic- 
tions about  the  future,  his  filial  pride  congratulated 


THE  STANISLAS   LECTURES  89 

itself  in  advance  on  the  progress  of  every  sort  of 
which  their  age  would  be  the  witness.  He  even 
extolled,  with  singular  precision,  those  discoveries 
of  science  which  were  to  shorten  distances,  sup- 
press space,  and  give  the  easiest  possible  means 
of  communication  between  nation  and  nation. 
In  his  eyes  all  these  discoveries  could  have  but 
a  single  result — to  permit  the  truth  to  advance 
easily  and  quickly.  "  And  it  is  you,"  he  added, 
"you,  men  of  the  time,  princes  of  industrial 
civilisation,  it  is  you  who  in  this  great  work  are, 
without  knowing  it,  the  pioneers  of  Providence. 
...  So  it  was  with  the  ancient  Romans,  your 
predecessors.  They  spent  seven  hundred  years 
in  bringing  the  nations  together  by  their  arms,  in 
cutting  up  the  three  continents  of  the  old  world 
with  their  great  military  roads.  They  believed 
that  their  legions  would  pass  over  them  eternally, 
carrying  their  orders  through  the  universe.  They 
did  not  know  that  they  were  preparing  the 
triumphal  routes  of  the  Consul  Jesus.  Oh  !  then, 
you,  their  heirs,  and  as  blind  as  they,  you,  Romans 
of  the  second  race,  continue  the  work  of  which  you 
are  instruments  ...  in  order  that  there  may  be 
no  more  haunts  where  tyranny,  protected  in  its 
isolation,  shall  be  able  to  shut  out  the  truth  by  fire 
and  water.  How  fair  will  then  be  the  feet  of  those 
who  carry  the  gospel  of  peace  !  The  apostles  of 
that  future  time  will  praise  you  !  They  will  say 
as  they  pass  in  their  eagle's  flight :  How  powerful 
and  bold  our  fathers  were  !  How  fruitful  their 
genius  has  been  !  How  good  it  is  for  us,  poor 
missionaries,  to  be  borne  so  rapidly  to  the  aid  of 
souls  !  May  they  be  blessed  who  have  assisted 
God's  mind  with  their  own,  and  may  they  receive 
in  another  land  some  of  that  dew  of  Heaven  whose 
effusion  they  have  helped,  although  they  did  not 
know  it." 


90  LACORDAIRE 

One  understands  how  such  tones,  so  new  in  the 
Christian  pulpit,  moved  profoundly  the  crowd  of 
hearers  who  thronged  even  the  dim  corners  of  the 
chapels  in  order  that  they  might  hear  some  echoes 
of  his  voice.  That  crowd  did  not  disperse  imme- 
diately after  the  sermon.  It  delayed  at  the  peristyle 
and  in  the  square  to  exchange  enthusiastic  expres- 
sions. Or  even,  an  eye-witness  relates,  they  went 
to  the  sacristy  door  by  which  he  was  to  leave,  and  to 
the  streets  through  which  he  was  to  pass.  "  How 
handsome  he  is  ! "  said  the  men  on  the  route. 
4 'How  good  he  is!"  said  the  women.  Perhaps 
the  latter  also  said  u  How  handsome  he  is  !  "  for 
in  truth  so  he  was,  as  he  is  represented  in  the 
miniature  reproduced  at  the  beginning  of  this 
volume,  with  his  black  and  abundant  hair,  his  pale 
face,  and  his  large  black  eyes  whose  glance  had  so 
much  fire  and  so  much  gentleness.  "He  speaks 
little,  but  he  says  so  much  with  a  look,"  wrote 
Eugenie  de  Guerin,  after  seeing  him  for  a  few 
moments. 

At  no  moment  in  his  life  was  Lacordaire  sur- 
rounded with  such  popularity.1  Since  the  Middle 
Ages,  the  old  cathedral  had  not  seen  such  a  crowd 
filling  its  five-fold  nave.  It  is  intelligible  that 
Mgr.  de  Quelen,  who  some  years  before  had  been 
present  at  the  sacking  of  his  episcopal  palace, 
congratulated  himself  on  a  change  in  the  state  of 
men's  minds,  in  which  he  himself  could  claim  his 
share,  and  that  at  the  closing  of  the  Lent  course  of 
sermons  he  should  get  up  and  speak  of  him  as  a 
"  new  prophet."  It  is  intelligible,  too,  that  as  he 
accompanied  him  one  day  to  Madame  Swetchine's, 
he  should  call  him  "our  giant."  But  this  reward 
was  not  the  one  that  Lacordaire  enjoyed  most. 
"  Another  sort  of  joy,"  he  has  written,  "  appealed 

J  A  certain  shade  of  green,  which  was  all  the  rage  at  the  promenade 
of  Longchamp,  received  the  name  of  "  Lacordaire  green." 


THE   STANISLAS   LECTURES  91 

to  my  soul  and  raised  it  to  regions  purer  than  those 
of  fame.  The  communion  of  souls  was  revealed  to 
me,  a  communion  which  is  the  priest's  true  happi- 
ness when  he  is  worthy  of  his  mission,  and  which 
takes  away  from  him  all  regret  for  having  given 
up  for  Jesus  Christ  the  ties,  the  friendships,  and 
the  hopes  of  the  world.  It  is  in  Notre-Dame,  at 
the  foot  of  my  pulpit,  that  I  have  seen  the  birth  of 
those  affections  and  those  recognitions  that  attach 
the  man  to  the  apostle  by  bonds  whose  sweetness 
is  as  divine  as  their  strength.  When  one  has 
once  been  initiated  into  these  joys,  which  are  like 
a  foretaste  of  the  aroma  of  the  other  life,  all  else 
vanishes,  and  pride  no  longer  mounts  into  the 
mind  save  as  an  impure  breath  whose  bitter  taste 
cannot  deceive  it."  This  communion  of  souls  is 
the  reward  of  the  priest's  sacrifices.  Happy  among 
men  must  be  he  who  has  known  and  felt  it ! 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  RESTORATION  OF  THE  ORDER  OF 
SAINT  DOMINIC 

Never  had  Lacordaire's  success  been  greater,  and 
never  had  his  hearers  been  more  attentive  or  more 
numerous  than  at  his  last  sermon  in  the  Lent  of 
1836.  It  was  therefore  with  a  sort  of  stupor  that 
they  heard  these  solemn  words  fall  from  his 
lips  :  "  May  it  be  granted,  gentlemen,  that 
I  have  been  able  to  inspire  you  at  least  with 
the  good  thought  of  turning  towards  God  in 
prayer  and  of  renewing  your  relations  with  Him, 
not  only  in  your  minds,  but  in  your  hearts. 
That  is  the  hope  I  take  away  with  me.  It  is  the 
prayer  I  make  as  I  leave  you.  I  leave  in  my 
bishop's  hands  this  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame,  a 
thing  henceforth  established,  established  by  him 
and  by  you — by  the  pastor  and  the  people.  For 
a  moment  this  double  commission  has  been 
granted  to  me.  Allow  me  to  lay  it  down  and  for 
a  time  to  retire  into  solitude  with  my  own  weak- 
ness and  with  God."  A  long  murmur  ran  through 
the  crowded  ranks,  and  this  murmur  was  not  yet 
stilled  when  the  Archbishop,  rising  with  visible 
sadness,  confirmed  this  news,  adding  that  Lacor- 
daire  was  going  to  the  Eternal  City,  to  the  feet  of 
the  Common  Father  of  the  Faithful,  to  render 
him  an  account  of  what  he  had  seen  and  what  he 
had  done. 

What  motives  inspired  the  fashionable  preacher 
92 


THE  ORDER  OF   SAINT   DOMINIC    93 

to  a  determination  so  adverse  to  his  reputation  ? 
Doubtless  there  should  be  added  to  the  feeling 
of  what  he  called  his  weakness,  and  to  what  he 
regarded  as  the  necessity  of  continuing  his  theo- 
logical education  and  of  adding  to  his  secular 
knowledge,  the  sadness  of  knowing  that  the  bril- 
liant success  of  his  preaching  had  neither  silenced 
the  suspicions  nor  disarmed  the  hostility  of  which 
he  was  the  object.  He  could  not  be  ignorant  of 
the  fact  that  twenty-seven  propositions  had  been 
extracted  from  the  sermons  he  had  preached  in 
1835,  anc*  submitted  to  Rome  as  heterodox  by  a 
Vicar -General  of  Lyon  ;  that  the  Bishop  of 
Caryste  in  partibus  was  preparing  two  volumes 
against  him,  and  that  his  sermons  were  de- 
scribed by  his  detractors  as  "the  greatest  degra- 
dation of  speech  and  the  fullest  anarchy  not 
only  of  theological  but  of  philosophical  thought." 
But  Lacordaire  was  a  man  to  face  the  storm 
should  one  arise.  There  was  nothing  timid  in  his 
nature,  and  his  pride  caused  him  to  be  but  little 
sensitive  to  attacks.  We  must  therefore  look  for 
the  motives  of  this  singular  determination  in  a 
secret  design,  perhaps  as  yet  imperfectly  known 
to  himself. 

The  success  of  Lacordaire's  preaching  had  cer- 
tainly been  great.  But  what  after  all  were  sermons 
addressed,  during  a  limited  time,  in  a  single  city, 
to  a  restricted  public  ?  What  could  their  influence 
be,  when  it  was  a  question  of  nothing  less  than 
bringing  back  to  the  Catholic  Church  a  whole 
nation  that  had  been  rendered  suspicious  by  a 
long  series  of  faults  and  misunderstandings?  It 
was  to  the  whole  of  France  that  it  was  necessary 
to  speak.  Who  could  do  it?  Who  had  the  right 
of  speaking  in  every  town  and  every  church?  The 
parochial  clergy.  But  Lacordaire  felt  that  the 
parochial  clergy  were  still  unfitted  for  the  great 


94  LACORDAIRE 

design  he  had  conceived.  He  knew  them  to  be 
too  dependent  on  the  Government  through  their 
salaries,  and  on  the  Manor  House  through  their 
habits,  to  adopt  the  bold  attitude  and  to  use  the 
popular  language  that,  according  to  him,  were 
suited  to  so  new  a  situation.  If  the  former  con- 
ductor of  the  "  Avenir"had  abandoned  his  dream 
of  a  secular  clergy  that  had  burst  every  bond  with 
the  State  and  lived  only  on  its  own  resources,  he 
must  have  been  all  the  more  inclined  to  seek 
whether  the  very  constitution  of  the  Church  could 
not  furnish  the  instruments  necessary  for  a  trans- 
formation which  he  still  judged  to  be  indispensable. 
In  the  French  Church  of  former  ages,  at  first 
intimately  united  to  a  feudal  society,  afterwards  and 
above  all  to  an  aristocratic  society,  one  power  had 
never  ceased  to  stand  for  independence,  liberty, 
democracy — the  Monastic  Orders.  Those  Orders 
had  remained  closely  associated  with  the  life  of 
the  people,  for  they  came  forth  from  its  body.  It 
has  been  possible  to  say  with  truth  that  the  true 
monk  is  the  people.  Doubtless,  corruption  had 
in  part  prevailed  within  those  Orders,  as  it  had 
more  or  less  prevailed  within  the  whole  Church  of 
France.  Their  popularity  had  been  lost ;  the 
Revolution  had  proscribed  them  ;  their  garb  had 
become  odious  or  ridiculous.  But  would  it  not 
be  possible  to  find  again  in  those  regenerated 
Orders  precisely  that  independent  militia  of  which 
the  Church  had  need  in  order  to  engage  in  the 
struggle  at  every  point — a  militia  ready  to  dare 
all  because  it  had  nothing  to  risk,  free  in  all  its 
movements  because  it  would  have  no  ties,  able  to 
proceed  everywhere,  to  penetrate  everywhere,  and 
owing  no  account  for  its  actions  save  to  the  Pope 
and  to  God? 

With  these  general  views  there  were  joined  in 
Lacordaire's  mind  other  thoughts,  more  personal 


THE  ORDER  OF  SAINT   DOMINIC    95 

and  more  intimate.  The  monastic  life,  which 
seems  so  contrary  to  the  instincts  of  our  nature, 
nevertheless  satisfies,  one  cannot  doubt  it,  other 
and  no  less  powerful  instincts,  since  in  every 
country  where  legislation  is  not  a  barrier,  and  often 
even  in  spite  of  that  legislation,  we  see  cloisters 
opened  and  filled.  That  life,  in  which  activity  is 
mingled  with  contemplation,  is  indeed  necessary 
to  some  souls,  who  need  solitude  just  as  a  plant 
needs  water.  It  is  not  that  these  souls  are  in- 
sensitive or  indifferent ;  quite  the  contrary.  It  is 
rather  that  the  too  intense  life  of  their  minds, 
the  too  incessant  vibrations  of  their  hearts, 
make  it  indispensable  for  them  to  have  certain 
intervals  when  they  can  seek  refuge  within 
themselves.  The  finest  instrument  sometimes 
requires  to  have  its  strings  slackened  if  it  is  to 
give  forth  all  the  sound  of  which  it  is  capable. 
Lacordaire's  was  one  of  those  natures  whom  their 
very  sensibility  fatigues,  and  this  inclination  to- 
wards retirement  was  developed  early  in  him. 
"I  feel  with  joy,"  he  wrote  to  Montalembert, 
"  solitude  growing  around  me,  it  is  my  element, 
it  is  my  life";  and  in  another  letter:  u  Nothing 
can  be  done  without  solitude  ;  that  is  my  great 
axiom.  A  man  is  made  from  within  himself  and 
not  from  without." 

By  seeking  solitude  in  the  common  life,  and 
by  submitting  a  nature  as  yet  impetuous,  and 
a  disposition  as  yet  impatient,  and  which  smacked 
more  of  the  man  than  of  the  Christian,  to  a 
stricter  rule  than  that  of  the  priesthood,  Lacor- 
daire,  therefore,  did  no  more  than  give  effect  to  a 
design  which  he  had  long  conceived,  and  which  he 
had  even  made  public  when  he  left  the  seminary. 
At  the  moment  when  he  determined  to  leave  the 
pulpit  of  Notre-Dame  and  to  make  a  long  stay  in 
Rome,  his  views  of  the  future  and  his  inner  resolu- 


96  LACORDAIRE 

tions  were,  however,  far  from  having  reached  the 
precision  that  I  have  just  given  them.  Thus,  often 
in  our  most  important  decisions,  we  obey  some 
inward  force  the  secret  influence  of  which  we  do 
not  recognise  until  afterwards  : 

J'ignore  oh  mon  dessein  qui  surpasse  ma  vue 

Si  vite  me  conduit. 
Mais,  comme  un  astre  ardent  qui  brille  dans  la  nue 

II  me  guide  en  la  nuit. 

These  are  the  words  used,  some  two  hundred 
years  ago,  by  Father  Joseph,  a  Capuchin  monk  who 
has  played  a  certain  part  in  history,  and  it  was  in 
the  same  sense  that  Lacordaire  could  say,  in  less 
poetical  language,  "that  his  retirement  to  Rome  had 
a  hidden  end  which  was  only  to  be  revealed  to  him 
later  on."  In  order  for  it  to  be  revealed  to  him,  a 
serious  incident  was  necessary — his  almost  com- 
plete rupture  with  Mgr.  de  Quelen. 

That  rupture  arose  out  of  the  "  Letter  on  the 
Holy  See,"  by  which  Lacordaire  wished  to  reply  to 
the  book  by  Lamennais  on  "  Affaires  de  Rome." 
For  reasons  that  seem  to  us  to-day  rather  difficult 
to  understand,  the  Archbishop  showed  himself 
opposed  to  its  publication.  Lacordaire  was  hurt 
by  this  opposition.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  he 
imagined  that  Mgr.  de  Quelen  had  again  allowed 
himself  to  be  imposed  upon  by  influences  that 
were  hostile  to  him,  and  all  Madame  Swetchine's 
diplomacy  did  not  succeed  in  preventing  a  con- 
flict. Lacordaire  wrote  several  letters  to  Mgr.  de 
Quelen  in  a  tone  of  haughty  equality,  and  it  was  im- 
possible for  the  latter  in  his  turn  not  to  have  been 
wounded  by  these.  This  conflict  made  Lacordaire's 
return  to  Paris  almost  impossible,  and  in  par- 
ticular his  resumpton  of  the  sermons  at  Notre- 
Dame,  where,  moreover,  Father  de  Ravignan  had 
just  successfully  inaugurated  a  form  of  preaching 


THE  ORDER  OF  SAINT  DOMINIC    97 

different  from  his.  It  was  necessary  for  him  to 
come  to  some  decision.  At  that  moment,  that  is 
to  say  in  the  month  of  March,  1837,  ne  withdrew 
into  the  House  of  Saint  Eusebius,  which  belonged 
to  the  Jesuits.  As  far  as  it  is  possible  to  penetrate 
into  the  secrets  of  the  soul,  it  was  in  the  course  of 
this  retirement  that  he  formed  his  final  resolution. 
It  is  a  strange  thing,  but  this  resolution  was  harder 
for  him  than  his  first  vows  had  been.  "  The  sacri- 
fice was  bitter,"  he  has  written.  "  While  it  had 
cost  me  nothing  to  leave  the  world  for  the  priest- 
hood, it  cost  me  everything  to  add  to  the  priest- 
hood the  weight  of  the  religious  life.  Nevertheless, 
in  the  second  case  as  in  the  first,  once  my  mind 
was  made  up,  I  had  neither  weakness  nor  regret, 
and  I  marched  courageously  towards  the  trials  that 
awaited  me." 

As  to  the  choice  of  the  Order  which  he  was  to 
enter,  Lacordaire  explained  it  thus:  "  History," 
he  has  written,  "  showed  me  only  two  great  in- 
stitutions, one  arising  in  the  thirteenth  century  for 
the  defence  of  orthodoxy  against  the  first  invasion 
of  the  Latin  heresies,  the  other  called  forth  in  the 
sixteenth  century  to  be  a  barrier  against  Pro- 
testantism, the  supreme  form  of  error  in  the  West. 
I  had,  therefore,  to  choose  between  the  Society  of 
Jesus  and  the  Order  of  the  Friars  Preachers,  or 
rather,  I  had  no  choice  to  make,  since,  as  the 
Jesuits  existed  in  France,  there  was  no  need  to  re- 
establish them  there."  The  alternative  was  not, 
however,  so  definite,  nor  the  choice  so  restrained 
as  Lacordaire  has  represented  it.  More  than  one 
Order,  indeed,  which  had  been  abolished  in  France 
by  the  Revolution  had  not  yet  been  re-established, 
and,  in  particular,  it  seems  that  the  essentially 
French  Order  of  the  Oratory,  with  its  great  memo- 
ries of  Berulle  and  of  Malebranche,  might  have 
tempted  him,  as  later  it  tempted  men  like  Perraud 

H 


93  LACORDAIRE 

and  Gratry.  Something-,  therefore,  attracted  him 
towards  the  Order  of  Saint  Dominic  which  must 
have  especially  corresponded  to  his  tastes  and  his 
designs. 

And,  first  of  all,  there  was  the  very  name  which 
the  famous  institution  bore,  the  Order  of  Friars 
Preachers.  It  was,  in  truth,  as  in  former  times, 
on  the  powerful  instrument  of  speech  that  he 
relied  to  restore  the  Church's  influence,  much 
more  than  on  writings  and  theological  controversy. 
As  for  the  unpopularity  of  the  Order,  which  had 
been  unjustly  compromised  by  memories  of  the 
Inquisition  (this  was  a  point  which  he  was  anxious 
to  establish  later  on),  it  was,  on  the  contrary,  an 
objection  which  perhaps  helped  to  determine  him, 
through  a  characteristic  of  his  mind  to  which  it  is 
necessary  to  draw  attention. 

In  his  style  of  oratory,  Lacordaire  never  hesi- 
tated to  use  an  unexpected,  new,  or  daring  ex- 
pression, that  would  strike  the  ear  of  his 
hearers,  even  should  it  astonish  them  or  scan- 
dalise them  a  little ;  in  a  word,  he  sought  for  an 
effect,  and  he  often  found  it.  Similarly,  in  his 
conduct,  he  never  shrank  from  those  striking 
acts  which  force  attention  and  provoke  discussion ; 
not  only  had  he  courage,  he  had  audacity, 
and  he  was  not  afraid  of  its  effect.  For  him,  a 
Liberal  priest,  to  attempt  to  re-establish  in  France 
the  Order  to  which  Torquemada  had  belonged, 
this  was  a  difficulty  that  would  have  frightened 
anyone  less  venturesome,  but  for  him,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  became  an  incitement.  There  was  no- 
thing, even  to  the  strange  costume,  the  white 
frock,  the  black  cloak,  and  the  shaven  head,  which 
did  not  serve  his  secret  design.  It  was  not  possible 
with  this  costume  to  introduce  the  members  one 
by  one,  as  the  Jesuits  had  done,  following  their 
familiar  tactics,  which  had  allowed   them   to   es- 


THE  ORDER   OF  SAINT  DOMINIC    99 

tablish  a  novitiate  at  Montrouge.  The  day  when 
a  Dominican,  clothed  in  the  costume  of  his  Order, 
would  again  enter  France,  it  would  be  a  chal- 
lenge. But  if  the  challenge  was  not  accepted,  it 
would  be  a  victory,  and  to  hide  cleverness  under 
boldness  in  this  way  was  a  tactic  that  suited  him 
better  than  the  silent  method  of  the  Jesuits.  From 
different  tactics  each  chooses  that  which  best  suits 
his  own  temperament,  and  in  all  things  Lacordaire 
had  always  a  taste  for  what  was  resounding. 

His  resolution  taken,  it  was  necessary  to  inform, 
first  his  friends  and  then  France,  of  his  project. 
He  began  to  do  this  on  his  return  from  a  Lenten 
course  which  he  had  preached  in  Metz  Cathedral, 
where  he  again  found  all  the  success  he  had  had 
at  Notre-Dame.  It  was  in  the  spring  of  1838.  At 
first  he  met  only  with  coldness  and  objections. 
11  These  things  are  in  God's  hand,"  Mgr.  de 
Quelen  had  said,  "  but  His  will  has  not  yet 
shown  itself."  Madame  Swetchine  rather  allowed 
him  to  act  than  encouraged  him.  A  very  tender 
and  devoted  affection — later  on  I  shall  have  to 
point  out  the  almost  unknown  place  it  held  in 
his  life— tried  to  restrain  him.  Not  without  sor- 
row did  its  possessor  see  him  sacrifice  (at  least 
so  she  believed)  both  his  fame  and  his  talent  to 
vain  projects  of  austerity  and  renunciation.  But 
nothing  shook  him. 

It  was  necessary  in  the  next  place  to  win  over 
public  opinion.  With  this  thought  he  drew  up  a 
H  Memorial  for  the  Re-establishment  of  the  Friars 
Preachers,"  which  has  remained  one  of  the  most 
famous  of  the  works  that  left  his  pen.  It  was  to 
France  that  he  addressed  it :  "  My  country,"  said 
he  to  her,  "  whilst  you  with  joy  and  pain  are 
pursuing  the  formation  of  modern  society,  one  of 
your  children,  a  Christian  by  faith,  a  priest  by  the 
traditional    anointing    of    the    Catholic    Church, 


ioo  LACORDAIRE 


comes  to  claim  from  you  his  share  in  the  liberties 
which  you  have  conquered  and  for  which  he  him- 
self has  paid.  He  prays  you  to  read  the  'Me- 
morial' which  he  addresses  to  you  here.  ..." 

He  appealed,  then,  to  an  authority  which,  like 
Pascal,  he  called  the  queen  of  the  world — to  public 
opinion — to  ask  from  it  protection  against  itself,  if 
he  needed  it,  and  he  endeavoured  in  some  eloquent 
and  able  pages  that  deserve  to  be  read  again 
(for  the  question  he  raised  has  not  yet  been  legally 
decided)  to  show  how  strange  it  was  that  in  a 
country  devoted  to  liberty  some  of  its  citizens  should 
not  be  permitted  to  live  in  the  same  house,  to  get 
up  and  go  to  bed  at  the  same  hour,  to  eat  at  the 
same  table,  and  to  wear  the  same  clothing.  He 
went  on  with  a  panegyric  of  the  Order  of  Friars 
Preachers,  whose  work  as  preachers,  as  doctors, 
as  missionaries  he  extolled,  and  in  tones  full  of 
eloquence  and  charm  he  painted  the  life  of  the 
Preaching  Friars  as  they  were  called,  very  few  of 
whom  returned  to  die  in  the  mother  convent,  but 
the  greater  part  of  whom,  on  the  contrary,  worn 
out  by  fatigue,  rested  far  away  from  their  brethren 
and  their  country.  With  singular  clear-sighted- 
ness he  foretold  the  troubles  which  the  double 
principle  of  the  equality  of  political  rights  and 
freedom  of  industrial  competition  could  not  fail 
to  engender  in  modern  society,  and  he  added  these 
prophetic  words  :  "  Associations — religious,  agri- 
cultural, and  industrial — are  the  only  resources  of 
the  future  against  the  continuance  of  revolutions. 
Never  will  the  human  race  return  to  the  past ; 
never  will  it  ask  help  from  the  old  aristocratic 
societies,  whatever  be  the  weight  of  its  ills  ;  but  it 
will  seek  in  voluntary  associations,  founded  on 
labour  and  on  religion,  for  the  remedy  for  the 
plague  of  civilisation."  Lastly,  he  ended,  as  he 
had  begun,   by  an  appeal  to  France,  declaring, 


THE  ORDER  OF  SAINT  DOMINIC     i*t 

moreover,  that,  whatever  should  be  the  treatment 
his  country  reserved  for  him,  he  would  never 
complain  of  her,  and  that  he  would  hope  in  her 
to  his  last  breath. 

Some  days  after  the  publication  of  this 
" Memorial,"  Lacordaire  again  took  the  road  to 
Rome  with  two  companions,  and  on  April  9th, 
1839,  tne  three  Frenchmen  received  the  habit  of 
Saint  Dominic  at  the  Minerva  Convent.  The 
next  day  they  set  out  for  the  convent  of  La 
Quercia,  near  Viterbo,  where  they  were  to  pass 
the  year  of  their  novitiate.  "  It  was  cold  on  the 
day  of  our  arrival,"  he  wrote  three  days  after- 
wards to  Madame  Swetchine.  "The  wind  had 
changed  to  the  north,  and  we  had  only  a  summer 
habit,  and  were  in  a  room  without  a  fire.  We  knew 
nobody  ;  all  the  prestige,  all  the  excitement,  had 
departed  ;  friendship  was  no  longer  beside  us, 
though  it  remembered  us  ;  we  were  alone  with 
God,  face  to  face  with  a  life  that  was  unknown  to 
us.  ...  I  had  a  moment  of  weakness.  I  turned 
my  eyes  towards  all  that  I  had  left,  that  regular 
life,  those  sure  advantages,  my  tenderly  loved 
friends,  my  days  so  full  of  profitable  intercourse, 
to  the  warm  hearths,  to  the  thousand  joys  of  an 
existence  that  God  had  filled  with  so  much  outward 
and  inner  happiness.  To  renounce  all  that  for  ever 
was  to  pay  dearly  for  the  pride  of  a  forceful 
action.  I  humiliated  myself  before  God  and  asked 
from  Him  the  strength  I  needed.  From  the  end 
of  the  first  day  I  felt  that  He  had  heard  me,  and 
during  the  past  three  days  comfort  has  been 
growing  in  my  soul  as  gently  as  the  waves  of 
the  sea  that  caress  its  shores  as  it  covers  them." 

Lacordaire  underwent  the  ordeal  of  the  novitiate 
in  all  its  rigour.  The  Master-General  had  pro- 
posed to  shorten  its  duration  for  him  by  six 
months,  but  he  refused,  just  as  he  did  not  wish  to 


to*  LACORDAIRE 


be  exempt  from  any  of  the  exercises  that  the  rule 
imposes  on  novices.  In  his  turn  he  drew  the  water, 
swept  the  corridors,  and  trimmed  the  lamps. 
These  modest  occupations  and  the  psalmody  of 
the  offices  did  not,  however,  employ  all  his  hours, 
and  (I  speak  from  a  purely  human  point  of  view) 
there  remained  to  him  time  for  employments  of  a 
more  elevated  order.  He  employed  this  time  in 
writing  a  life  of  Saint  Dominic,  which  appeared 
the  following  year.  "It  is  immense,  like  beauty," 
said  Chateaubriand  after  reading  it;  "I  do  not 
know  a  finer  style."  Madame  Swetchine  said: 
"It  is  not  only  a  masterpiece,  it  is  a  miracle 
because  it  is  destined  to  work  miracles." 

It  is  difficult  to-day  to  rise  to  this  height  of 
enthusiasm.  Not  that  the  work  itself  is  to  be 
despised.  It  is  written  with  warmth  and  move- 
ment, in  language  vigorous  and  picturesque, 
perhaps  a  little  too  picturesque.  But  the  revolu- 
tion that  has  taken  place  in  historical  method 
makes  us  to-day  less  indulgent  towards  biographies 
that  have  been  composed  without  any  recourse  to 
primitive  documents,  and  with  a  total  and  inten- 
tional absence  of  criticism.  Lacordaire  was  always 
less  of  a  writer  than  of  an  orator.  If  he  some- 
times employed  striking  expressions  and  felicitous 
words,  the  common  fault  of  his  style,  namely,  the 
vagueness  and  unfitness  of  his  expressions,  be- 
came more  evident  when  the  form  ceased  to  be 
elevated  and  sustained  by  the  movement.  Thus 
this  little  book  has  not  had  the  destiny  that 
Madame  Swetchine  predicted,  and  I  do  not  believe 
that  it  has  performed  a  great  miracle. 

However,  the  end  of  his  novitiate  was  approach- 
ing, and  on  April  12,  1840,  he  definitely  made 
his  vows  in  the  presence  of  a  small  congregation 
which  numbered,  among  others,  the  touching  hero- 
ine of  the  ' '  Recit  d'une  Sceur, "  the  Countess  Albert 


Lacordaire 


From  the  painting-  by  Theodore  Chasseriau  (1840)  in  the 

Musee  du  Louvre  To  face  p.  102 


C  <     I      «  <     <         . 


THE  ORDER  OF  SAINT  DOMINIC     103 

de  la  Ferronnays.  Some  days  afterwards  she  heard 
him  preach  at  Saint-Louis  des  Francais.  "  It  has 
surpassed  anything  I  had  imagined,"  she  wrote, 
M  although  my  imagination  went  far.  How  I 
should  like  to  hear  him  again  !  "  But  Lacordaire 
(whose  sermon  had  aroused  lively  opposition)  had 
no  intention  of  again  starting  on  a  preacher's 
career  abroad,  and  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to 
the  Master-General  to  ask  permission  to  remain  in 
Rome  for  three  months,  he  affirmed  his  wish  to 
remain  faithful  to  France.  "  We  belong  to  her," 
he  said,  "  by  our  baptism,  by  her  misfortunes  and 
her  needs,  by  our  profound  faith  in  her  destiny, 
by  our  whole  souls  ;  we  wish  to  live  and  to  die  her 
children  and  her  servants."  Thus,  hardly  was 
the  permission  given,  and  the  establishment  of  a 
French  novitiate  at  the  Convent  of  Santa  Sabina 
decided  in  principle,  than  Lacordaire  left  for  Paris 
with  the  thought  of  seeking  new  companions 
there,  but  above  all  of  displaying  the  habit  of  Saint 
Dominic  in  public. 

For  a  long  time  the  thought  of  reappearing  in 
France  in  this  forgotten  costume  had  haunted 
Lacordaire.  "  You  will  see  me  in  the  flesh,  in 
the  black  and  white  habit,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in 
the  first  months  of  his  novitiate.  Thus  when  Mgr. 
de  Quelen  complimented  him  on  his  "  Memorial 
in  Favour  of  the  Re-establishment  of  the  Friars 
Preachers,"  he  had  not  hesitated  to  lay  aside  his 
grievances,  well  founded  or  not,  and  to  write  to 
him  to  ask  if  he  would  consent  to  allow  him  to 
appear  in  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame.  Since  that 
time  Mgr.  de  Quelen  had  died,  and  Mgr.  Affre  had 
succeeded  him.  Lacordaire  renewed  his  demand, 
and  Mgr.  Affre  did  not  hesitate  to  accede  to 
it.  To  go  through  France  in  the  Dominican 
costume  was  a  first  test.  Lacordaire  attempted  it. 
He  had,  however,  taken  the  precaution  of  bring- 


io4  LACORDAIRE 


ing  with  him  an  old  soutane,  in  order  to  be  able 
to  put  it  on  in  case  of  pressing  necessity  ;  but  at 
the  end  of  some  days  he  found  that  such  a  pre- 
caution was  unworthy  of  a  Preaching  Friar  of 
Saint  Dominic,  and  meeting  a  Spanish  priest  in 
rags,  he  gave  it  to  him.  In  the  course  of  this 
journey  he  caused  some  astonishment,  and  was 
made  the  recipient  of  some  jests,  but  of  no  insult, 
and  he  could  walk  as  a  monk  without  inconveni- 
ence in  the  streets  of  Paris,  where,  ten  years 
before,  he  could  not  show  himself  as  a  priest. 
Difficulties  seemed  to  smooth  themselves  out  on 
his  path.  A  rumour  had  been  spread  that  the 
Government  was  hostile.  The  Keeper  of  the 
Seals,  M.  Martin  du  Nord,  invited  him  to  dine 
with  him,  and  a  former  Keeper  of  the  Seals  under 
Charles  X.,  who  was  present  at  the  dinner,  could 
say  with  melancholy  irony  to  his  neighbour,  that 
if  he  had  done  as  much  formerly,  his  office  would 
have  been  set  on  fire  the  next  day. 

Hitherto  all  went  well,  but  in  obscurity.  The 
definite  test  would  be  the  open  appearance  in  the 
pulpit  of  Notre-Dame.  On  the  fixed  date,  Feb- 
ruary 1 2th,  1841,  Lacordaire  ascended  it,  under 
the  excuse  of  preaching  a  sermon  in  favour  of  the 
Saint  Vincent  de  Paul  lectures.  The  congregation 
was  immense  ;  not  a  place  was  empty  either  in  the 
nave  or  in  the  side  chapels.  Curiosity  was  greatly 
excited.  The  greater  number  of  hearers  remem- 
bered that  they  had  seen  in  that  pulpit  a  young 
priest  with  an  abundance  of  curling  hair,  with 
large  earnest  eyes  lighting  up  a  pale  but  rather 
full  face.  They  now  saw  a  friar  with  shaven 
head  and  only  a  fringe  of  hair,  with  emaciated 
features,  but  with  eyes  still  large,  a  man  such  as 
they  had  seen  in  a  portrait  by  Chasseriau  that  had 
been  exhibited  some  time  before  at  the  Salon. 
11  Exhibit  it,"  Lacordaire  had  said  to  the  painter  ; 


THE  ORDER  OF  SAINT  DOMINIC    105 

"it,  too,  is  a  way  of  making  my  habit  known." 
The  subject  he  had  chosen  was  "The  Vocation  of 
the  French  Nation,"  wishing,  as  he  himself 
said,  to  cover  the  audacity  of  the  attempt  by  the 
popularity  of  his  subject.  To  say  to  France  that 
she  has  received  a  mission  from  Providence  even 
while  reproaching  her  for  having  failed  in  it,  is, 
indeed,  still  to  flatter  her.  The  sermon  out- 
stripped the  usual  limits.  As  he  perceived  a 
little  fatigue  among  his  hearers,  he  made  a  happy 
digression  :  "  Perhaps,  gentlemen,  I  am  too  long, 
but  it  is  your  own  fault.  It  is  your  own  history 
that  I  am  relating  ;  you  will  pardon  me  if  I  have 
made  you  drink  to  the  very  lees  this  chalice  of 
glory." 

This  sermon,  which  is  not  one  of  his  best, 
caused  him  to  be  attacked  by  the  Legitimist 
journals,  because  he  seemed  to  admit  that  the 
accession  to  power  of  the  middle-classes  was  part 
of  the  general  plan  of  Providence.  For  this 
reason  he  was  called  a  revolutionary  and  a  dema- 
gogue. But  the  value  of  the  sermon  mattered 
little.  The  day  on  which,  in  the  heart  of  Paris, 
Lacordaire  had  mounted  the  pulpit  in  a  white 
frock  and  black  cloak,  and  on  which  he  had  been 
able  to  descend  again  without  arousing  protest 
or  tumult,  on  that  day  he  had  conquered  the  right 
of  citizenship  in  France  for  the  Order  of  Saint 
Dominic,  and  assuredly  no  more  complete  victory 
over  the  prejudices  of  time  and  country  has  ever 
been  won  by  a  single  man. 

In  an  especially  literary  study  like  this,  I  cannot 
stop  to  mark  the  successive  stages  of  that  victory 
— the  creation  of  a  first  house  at  Nancy  in  1843  and 
of  a  second  at  Chalais  in  1844 »  tne  foundation  of 
a  novitiate  at  Flavigny  in  1848 ;  lastly,  the  erec- 
tion of  the  Dominican  Province  of  France,  of 
which  Lacordaire  was  the  first  Provincial.     But 


io6  LACORDAIRE 

the  place  gained  later  by  the  Order  of  Saint 
Dominic  with  its  three  provinces  of  France,  of 
Toulouse,  and  of  Occitanie,  with  its  eighteen 
houses  of  the  First  Order,  and  its  six  houses  of 
the  Third  Order,  with  its  six  hundred  professed 
brethren  or  novices,  and,  above  all,  with  its 
preachers  whose  renown  and  popularity  fill  the 
French  pulpit — all  this  is  too  narrow  a  measure 
of  the  success  that  Lacordaire  obtained.  His 
work  has  been  greater,  for  he  has  been  the  real 
restorer  of  the  Monastic  Orders  in  France. 
Doubtless  if  we  concern  ourselves  only  with  dates, 
we  could  say  that  the  novitiate  of  the  Jesuits  at 
Montrouge  or  the  Abbey  of  the  Benedictines  at 
Solesmes  had  come  into  existence  earlier  than  the 
first  house  of  the  Dominicans  at  Nancy.  But  if 
the  Monastic  Orders  were,  until  recently,  closely 
associated  with  the  religious  life,  and  even,  through 
education,  with  the  general  life  of  France,  if  not 
only  Dominicans,  but  Capuchins,  Premonstraten- 
sians,  Oblates,  Eudists,  and  many  others  that  one 
could  name,  walked  freely  in  France,  if  they  could 
live  there  openly,  it  was  to  Lacordaire  that  they 
owed  it,  because  he  communicated  to  them  some  of 
his  own  tranquil  audacity,  of  his  own  bold  per- 
severance, and  because  he  was  the  first  to  teach 
them  to  claim  the  liberty  of  the  monk  in  the  name 
of  the  rights  of  the  citizen. 

A  few  years  ago  the  author  of  these  lines  had  a 
very  clear  vision  of  the  roots  which  that  old  grain, 
sown  anew  by  Lacordaire's  hand,  has  buried  in 
that  soil  of  France  which  has  been  so  deeply  dug. 
It  was  at  Fontaine-lez-Dijon,  the  little  village  that 
has  had  the  glory  of  giving  birth  to  Saint  Bernard. 
Nearly  thirty  thousand  pilgrims  and  sightseers 
had  gathered  there  to  celebrate  the  eight  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  saint's  birth  as  well  as 
the  restoration  of  the  house  in  which  he  was  born. 


THE  ORDER  OF  SAINT   DOMINIC     107 

Just  as  in  the  Middle  Ages,  a  Mass  was  to  be 
celebrated  and  a  sermon  preached  in  the  open 
air,  and  it  required  only  a  feeble  effort  of  the 
imagination  to  believe  oneself  transported  into 
a  very  distant  past.  The  procession  arrived. 
Seventeen  bishops  marched  at  its  head,  with 
their  silken  mitres,  and  their  golden  crosses  and 
crosiers.  Certainly  the  appearance  of  those  pious 
functionaries  of  the  Church,  for  the  most  part 
marked  out  for  her  choice  by  an  unbelieving  State, 
commanded  respect  and  betokened  dignity.  But 
at  the  same  time,  one  read,  except  on  two  or  three 
countenances  that  I  could  mention,  a  certain  sad 
submission  and  an  anticipatory  resignation.  The 
crowd  saw  them  pass  by  with  indifference.  After- 
wards came  the  abbots  and  the  priors.  There 
were  forty-seven  of  them,  most  of  them  wearing 
linen  mitres,  with  wooden  crosses  and  crosiers. 
Little  accustomed  to  see  abbots  with  crosiers  and 
mitres,  the  crowd  looked  at  these,  on  the  contrary, 
with  friendly  curiosity.  Young  for  the  most  part, 
their  sharpened  features  and  their  firm  glances 
betokened  ardour,  confidence,  and,  at  need,  the 
resolution  of  an  invincible  resistance.  One  felt 
that  the  life  and  the  sap  were  here.  Thinking 
then  of  all  the  vicissitudes  through  which  the 
Monastic  Orders  have  passed  in  France  during 
the  past  hundred  years— violent  and  bloody  pro- 
scription, contemptuous  unpopularity,  foolishly 
vexatious  measures — and  gazing  in  the  open  air 
at  this  public  display  of  long-forgotten  costumes 
and  insignia,  I  felt  the  profound  truth  of  that 
saying  of  Lacordaire,  which  formerly  seemed  a 
paradox  :    "  The  oaks  and  the  monks  are  eternal." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  SERMONS  AT  NOTRE-DAME  AND  THEIR 
INFLUENCE    ON    CONTEMPORARY    PREACHING 

It  was  in  the  month  of  December,  1843,  that, 
after  seven  years  of  voluntary  interruption,  Lacor- 
daire  again  entered  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame, 
which  he  was  not  to  relinquish  until  1852.  Those 
seven  years  had  not  been  silent  years  for  him. 
He  had  preached  in  succession  at  Nancy,  at 
Bordeaux,  at  Lyons,  and  at  Marseilles,  and  he 
had  been  able  to  prove  to  himself  that  he  had  lost 
none  of  his  power  of  oratory.  Mgr.  de  Quelen 
had  died,  and  Mgr.  Affre  was  calling  him  to 
Paris.  There  were  no  reasons  why  he  should  refuse 
that  summons.  But  his  return  to  Notre-Dame 
was  destined  to  be  preceded  by  a  veritable  battle. 
Mgr.  Affre  was  certainly  not  a  timid  man  ;  his 
end  has  proved  that.  But,  in  the  face  of  the 
prejudices  that  had  been  aroused  to  such  an  extra- 
ordinary degree  in  the  public  mind  during  the 
previous  two  years,  he  feared  the  trouble  and 
disorder  that  might  be  produced  by  the  official 
and  regular  instalment  in  the  pulpit  of  Notre- 
Dame  of  a  preacher  with  the  shaven  head  and 
wearing  the  white  frock  and  black  mantle  of  a 
Dominican.  The  King,  who  did  not  wish  to  see  a 
renewal  of  the  scenes  of  Saint-Germain-PAuxerrois, 
shared  this  fear.  He  sent  for  Mgr.  Affre,  and 
attempted  to  intimidate  him  and  to  induce  him 
to  silence  Lacordaire.     The  Archbishop  remained 

108 


THE  NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS       109 

firm,  but  at  the  same  time  he  had  recourse  to 
Madame  Swetchine's  diplomacy  in  order  to  obtain 
a  concession  from  Lacordaire.  If  the  latter  would 
consent  not  to  wear  his  Dominican  costume  and 
to  appear  in  the  pulpit  in  the  dress  of  a  secular 
priest,  all  would  be  arranged.  It  was  not  without 
repugnance  that  Madame  Swetchine  undertook 
to  deliver  this  message.  Her  hand,  she  said, 
trembled  as  she  wrote  to  Lacordaire  and  asked 
him  "if  the  man  in  him  would  be  willing  to  be 
completely  conquered  and  effaced,  and  if  he  would 
go  so  far  as  to  sacrifice  a  sort  of  point  of  honour 
and  a  purely  personal  gratification  in  order  that 
the  word  of  God  might  be  nobly,  liberally,  and 
gloriously  proclaimed."  To  this  diplomatic  mis- 
sive Lacordaire  replied  by  a  proud  letter  that  I 
should  like  to  be  able  to  quote  in  full,  so  much 
does  it  breathe  forth  the  tones  of  honour. 

UI  should,"  he  said,  "  present  in  Notre-Dame 
to  our  enemies  the  spectacle  of  a  monk  who  is  afraid 
after  having  paraded  his  courage,  who  hides  him- 
self after  having  made  a  display,  who  asks  for 
pardon  and  mercy  in  consideration  of  his  voluntary 
disguise.  That  is  not  possible.  The  graver  the 
situation  is,  and  the  more  complete  the  revenge 
which  Catholics  look  for  in  the  fact  of  my  speaking 
in  public,  the  less  ought  I  to  prepare  for  them  so 
painful  a  surprise.  It  would  be  a  hundred  times 
better  to  be  silent  than  to  betray  their  hopes.  Re- 
ligion does  not  need  a  triumph  ;  it  can  dispense  with 
my  words  at  Notre-Dame.  God  is  there  to  main- 
tain it  and  to  honour  it  even  in  its  opprobrium  ; 
but  it  does  need  that  its  children  should  not 
humilate  themselves  and  should  refuse  to  dishon- 
our its  ordeals."  And  he  ended  by  saying : 
"Character  is  what  we  must  always  save  before 
everything,  for  it  is  character  that  makes  the 
moral  power  of  man." 


no  LACORDAIRE 

Let  us  add,  in  order  to  end  this  episode,  that 
Lacordaire  kept  firm  to  the  end,  that  an  order 
came  to  him  from  the  Master-General  of  the 
Dominicans  to  yield,  that  he  still  refused,  and 
that  the  only  concession  that  could  be  obtained 
from  him  was  that  he  would  wear  a  canon's  rochet 
and  mozetta  over  his  Dominican  costume.  It  was 
in  this  strange  garb  that  he  was  compelled  for  a 
time  to  appear  in  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame.  We 
may  smile  at  these  trifles,  but  we  should  not  for- 
get to  note  the  progress  which,  in  the  course  of 
time  and  in  spite  of  certain  attempts,  the  spirit  of 
tolerance  and  of  liberty  has  made  in  our  land. 

Lacordaire  was  destined  to  occupy  the  pulpit  of 
Notre-Dame  for  nine  consecutive  years.  He 
preached  from  it  seventy-three  sermons,  to  which 
must  be  added  the  six  sermons  preached  at  Toulouse 
in  1854,  if  we  are  to  ta-ke  into  account  the  sum 
of  his  apologetic  work,  his  other  discourses  and 
sermons  being  of  a  different  character.  The  time 
has  come  to  study  his  oratorical  manner,  to  show 
what  pulpit  eloquence  was  before  his  time,  and 
what  he  made  of  it. 

From  the  most  distant  times  down  to  our  own 
days,  preaching  has  always  been  closely  mingled 
with  the  moral  and  social  life  of  our  country. 
Formerly,  those  who  handled  the  sacred  word — 
apostles,  bishops,  or  simple  monks — were  the  only 
persons  who  had  the  privilege  of  addressing  the 
people — the  crowd.  Before  printing,  before  the 
press,  they  were  the  medium  by  which  elevated 
ideas  reached  the  vulgar  understanding.  It  is 
preaching  that  has  lifted  France  out  of  barbarism 
by  moulding  her  to  the  morals  of  Christianity. 
In  the  work  of  civilisation  which  he  undertook, 
Charlemagne  counted  so  much  on  preaching  that 
he  caused  to  be  circulated  in  all  the  dioceses  of 
his  empire,  and  distributed  to  the  readers  of  his 


THE   NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS       in 

churches,  a  homiliarium,  that  is  to  say  a  compila- 
tion of  sermons,  in  two  volumes,  collected  by 
Alcuin.  Three  centuries  later,  it  is  preaching 
that  sends  France  on  the  Crusades,  and  the  sacred 
orators  then  play  the  same  part  as  the  popular 
tribunes  did  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution.  Later 
still,  at  the  moment  when  the  Reformation  divided 
Christian  Europe  in  two,  it  is  thanks  to  the 
preachers  of  the  League  and  to  their  fervour 
that  Catholicism  has  remained  in  France  the  re- 
ligion of  the  people,  and  that  the  Church  has 
conquered  the  meeting-house.  It  is  true  that  from 
the  League  onwards,  preaching  loses  its  popular 
character,  and  becomes  a  form  of  literature.  But, 
at  a  time  when  the  example  of  the  greatest 
scandals  was  given  in  the  highest  quarters,  it  had 
at  least  the  honour,  in  the  mouths  of  Bossuet,  of 
Bourdaloue,  of  Massillon,  of  placing  eloquence 
at  the  service  of  a  purer  morality.  Then  there 
took  place  a  phenomenon  unique  in  the  history 
of  the  evolution  of  literary  forms,  to  use  Brune- 
tiere's  term.  With  these  three  great  names,  the 
sermon  form  reached  its  apotheosis  at  a  bound. 
When  they  disappeared,  the  form  declined.  Of 
all  the  preachers  who  occupied  the  Christian 
pulpit  in  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
there  is  only  one  whose  name  has  survived ;  it  is 
Father  Bridaine,  and  that  thanks  to  the  famous 
sermon  preached  by  him  in  1751  in  the  Church  of 
Saint-Sulpice,  before  the  most  worldly  of  congre- 
gations ;  a  sermon  in  which  he  accused  himself 
of  having  preached  the  rigours  of  penance  to 
unfortunate  beings  most  of  whom  wanted  bread, 
and  of  having  thus  saddened  the  poor,  the  best 
friends  of  his  God.  But  the  other  preachers,  his 
contemporaries,  the  Elysees,  the  Poulles,  have 
passed  into  profound  oblivion. 

The   Revolution   closed   the  French  pulpit  for 


ii2  LACORDAIRE 


many  years,  and  when  the  Concordat  opened  it 
again,  it  did  not  remain  less  empty.  It  would, 
however,  be  unjust  not  to  mention  the  name  of 
Mgr.  Frayssinous,  and  his  "  Sermons  on  the 
Defence  of  Christianity,"  preached  in  the  Church 
of  Saint-Sulpice  "  before  a  congregation  chiefly 
composed  of  young  people  belonging  to  the  intelli- 
gent classes,"  as  says  the  preface  of  the  three 
volumes  published  by  him  in  1825.  Those 
Conferences,  as  it  has  become  usual  to  call  them, 
inaugurated,  indeed,  a  new  form  of  preaching. 
But  the  orator's  voice  was  not  strong  enough  to 
reach  the  ears  of  crowds,  and  the  attempt  remained 
without  any  echo.  From  the  time  of  Massillon's 
retirement,  or  if  you  will,  from  that  of  Father 
Bridaine,  down  to  the  day  when  Lacordaire  first 
began  to  preach,  we  can  say  that  the  Christian 
pulpit  remained  silent.1 

What  has  been  the  cause  of  the  decadence  of 
this  form  of  oratorical  art  which  two  centuries 
earlier  had  shone  with  so  vivid  a  splendour? 
Doubtless  one  can  find  it  in  the  weakening  of 
religious  belief  and  in  the  influence  of  the  philo- 

1  It  is  rather  noteworthy  that  in  the  Reformed  Church  the  his- 
tory of  the  sermon  is  exactly  similar.  At  the  period  of  the 
greatest  expansion  of  Protestantism,  no  preacher  is  remarkable 
for  his  eloquence,  even  for  his  popular  eloquence.  The  Protestant 
sermon  rivals  the  Catholic,  if  not  in  triviality,  at  least  in  dulness. 
It  is,  similarly,  under  Lous  XIV.,  that  Protestant  eloquence  rises  to 
its  highest  point,  with  Dubosc,  with  Drelincourt,  and  above  all, 
with  Saurin,  who,  it  is  true,  never  preached  in  France.  It  sinks 
immediately  afterwards.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  the  sermons 
of  those  who  have  been  called  the  "  shepherds  of  the  desert  "  are 
monuments  of  ardent  faith  but  have  little  literary  value.  During 
all  the  end  of  last  century  and  the  beginning  of  this,  Protestant 
eloquence  languished,  to  revive  only  about  1830,  at  the  epoch  that 
has  been  called  the  awakening.  One  of  the  glories  of  the 
Protestant  pulpit,  M.  Adolphe  Monod,  began  to  preach  in  Paris 
in  1840,  that  is  to  say  almost  at  the  same  time  as  Father  Lacor- 
daire. Later  by  some  twenty  years,  M.  Eugene  Bersier's  sermons 
equally  deserve  to  be  read  by  all  those  who  like  to  see  Christian 
thought  clothed  in  beauty  of  form. 


THE   NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS      113 

sophical  doctrines  of  the  eighteenth  century.  But, 
looking  at  the  thing  only  from  a  purely  literary 
point  of  view,  we  can  say  that  the  sermon  had 
been  ruined,  as  classical  tragedy  had  been  ruined, 
by  remaining  obstinately  bound  to  an  unalterable 
form.  "  The  sermon  is  a  false  form  of  literature, " 
Scherer  said,  in  an  article  that  formerly  made  a 
good  deal  of  stir,  and  in  learned  fashion  he  laid 
down  the  reasons  for  this,  which,  according  to  him, 
were  three  in  number.  First,  the  text,  which  is  only 
a  pretext,  for  the  preacher  does  not  explain  it,  does 
not  comment  upon  it,  and  only  draws  from  it,  more 
or  less  arbitrarily,  a  motif  on  which  he  will  play 
variations.  Then  the  division,  always  pedantic, 
almost  always,  also,  forced  and  smacking  of  the 
schools.  Lastly,  the  necessity  in  which  the  preacher 
finds  himself  of  preaching  always  on  dogma  or 
morals,  and  the  impossibility  of  forcing  a  portion 
of  human  truth  into  this  narrow  frame.  He  con- 
cluded by  saying  :  "  The  sermon  is  a  false  literary 
type,  especially  so  because  it  has  aged,  and  be- 
cause it  is  difficult  to  be  interested  in  it,  even 
retrospectively." 

Although  it  smacks  of  the  prejudice  and  rancour 
of  one  who  had  been  a  preacher  too  long  for  his 
own  liking,  this  criticism  of  Scherer  is  not  alto- 
gether devoid  of  truth.  Its  fault  is  that  it  is 
general  and  absolute  ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  it 
is  not  necessary  for  a  sermon  to  have  a  text  (and, 
moreover,  a  text  can  also  have  its  beauty).  Then 
it  is  still  less  necessary  for  the  division  to  be 
pedantic  and  of  the  schools.  Finally,  it  is  per- 
fectly easy  for  a  sermon  not  to  turn  upon  dogma 
or  morals,  and,  above  all,  it  can  contain  a  portion 
of  human  or  general  truth.  This  is  precisely  the 
case  with  Lacordaire's  sermons,  not  a  single  one 
of  which,  to  judge  from  the  contempt  with  which 
he  spoke  of  them,  can  we  believe  that  Scherer  had 
1 


ii4  LACORDAIRE 

ever  read.  And  if  this  aged  form  has  been  radi- 
cally transformed,  if  it  is  possible  to  be  interested 
in  it,  and  that  not  only  in  a  retrospective  fashion, 
it  is  to  Lacordaire  that  the  honour  belongs.  He  has, 
in  truth,  given  the  form  a  new  lease  of  youth  by  the 
novelty  of  his  apologetic  methods,  by  the  mould 
of  his  sermons,  and  by  the  nature  of  the  subjects 
he  has  treated.  It  is  from  this  triple  point  of 
view  that  his  work  as  an  orator  deserves  to  be 
studied. 

It  is  the  property  of  apologetic  to  renew  its 
arguments  with  time,  for,  from  Arius  to  Luther, 
and  from  Luther  to  our  own  days,  Catholic  ortho- 
doxy has  had  to  struggle  against  many  different 
objections.  But  those  with  which  it  was  strug- 
gling at  the  moment  when  Lacordaire  broke  into 
the  controversy  with  so  much  distinction,  were  of 
a  quite  special  nature.  Those  objections  were 
neither  inspired  by  the  mocking  scepticism  of  the 
last  century  nor  by  the  scientific  dogmatism  of  the 
present.  The  philosophy  which  was  then  domi- 
nant was  deist  and  spiritualist.  It  was  not  only 
the  Sorbonne  and  the  University  that  were  per- 
vaded with  this  philosophy  ;  it  extended  to  the 
drama,  to  literature,  and  to  politics.  From  Cousin 
or  Jouffroy  to  Lamartine  or  Victor  Hugo,  from 
Cuvier  or  Ampere  to  M.  Thiers  or  M.  Guizot,  no 
eminent  intelligence  refused  it  its  adherence.  It 
had  thus  a  common  ground  with  the  Catholic 
Church.  But  the  Church  had  to  struggle  against 
an  enemy  more  formidable  perhaps  than  material- 
ism or  science — against  a  respectful  disdain.  It 
was  not  without  warrant,  that  at  the  time  when 
he  was  protesting  against  this  disdain,  Lamennais 
had  given  as  a  motto  to  his  famous  "  Essay  on 
Indifference  in  Matters  of  Religion  "  this  verse 
from  the  Psalmist :  "  Impius,  quum  in  profundum 
yenerit,  contemnit"— u  The  wicked  man  speaketh 


THE   NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS      115 

disdainfully."  The  contempt  of  the  wicked  man 
was  all  the  more  difficult  to  combat,  as  he  clothed 
it  in  an  almost  affectionate  form.  Philosophers, 
historians,  scholars,  were  agreed  in  speaking  with 
gratitude  of  the  services  the  Church  had  done 
when  her  task  had  been  to  lead  humanity  from 
barbarism  to  civilisation.  But  her  task  was  ended. 
Humanity,  supported  by  reason,  was  henceforth 
in  a  state  to  determine  for  itself  the  creed  of  its 
beliefs  and  the  catechism  of  its  duties.  It  no 
longer  needed  to  be  held  by  the  hand  in  order  to 
advance  with  a  firm  step  along  the  roads  of  the 
future,  and  the  emancipated  child  could  walk 
without  his  mother's  assistance.  Far  more  !  The 
leading-strings  that  had  surrounded  his  early  years 
could  henceforth  only  shackle  his  growth.  Catholic 
doctrine  was  incompatible  with  popular  liberty  ; 
people  did  not  yet  say  with  democracy,  because 
the  word  had  a  bad  sound  in  the  ears  of  the  reign- 
ing middle-classes,  but  they  said  with  progress  and 
with  the  principles  of  '89  ;  a  new  society  required 
an  equally  new  religion,  whose  formula  had  still  to 
be  found,  but  one  which  seemed  destined  to  occupy 
the  middle  place  between  a  vague  Christianity 
and  an  emotional  deism. 

How  did  Lacordaire  attempt  to  answer  this  class 
of  objections?  Instead  of  seeking,  according  to 
the  usual  procedure  of  apologetics,  a  point  com- 
mon to  him  and  his  opponent  in  order  to  lead 
him  by  a  series  of  deductions  to  different  con- 
clusions ;  instead,  for  example,  of  taking  as  the 
starting-point  of  his  argument  the  existence  of 
a  personal  God,  which  no  philosophical  mind 
held  in  doubt,  so  as  from  that  fact  to  deduce 
revelation,  then  from  revelation  to  deduce  Christi- 
anity, and,  lastly,  from  Christianity  to  deduce 
Catholic  doctrine,  he  proceeded  by  the  opposite 
method.     He  looked   upon  the  Church  (and  no 


n6  LACORDAIRE 

one  could  dispute  these  premisses)  as  a  great 
historical  fact  which  it  was  necessary  to  explain, 
and  it  was  from  this  very  fact,  from  the  Church's 
continuance,  from  her  moral  and  social  action, 
that  he  thought  proper  to  draw  the  proof 
of  her  justifiableness.  He  applied,  in  some  re- 
spects, the  experimental  method  to  the  search  for 
truth,  and  he  began  his  apologetic  at  the  point 
where  his  predecessors  usually  ended.  The  Church 
was  his  starting-point  instead  of  his  goal. 

Thus  he  began  his  first  sermons  in  1835  by 
directing  the  attention  of  his  hearers  to  the 
Church,  to  her  constitution,  and  her  social  char- 
acter. He  demonstrated  to  them  the  necessity  of 
a  teaching  authority  amidst  the  uncertainties  and 
contradictions  of  the  human  mind.  To  the  varia- 
tions of  philosophies,  to  the  novelty  of  other  re- 
ligions, which  always  date  from  a  day  and  from  a 
man,  he  opposed  that  long  tradition  which  is  con- 
tinued through  the  Bible  and  the  Gospel,  without 
interruption  since  the  beginning  of  the  world,  and 
which  was  always  able  to  summon  living  testimony 
to  its  support.  "He  is  everywhere,"  he  added, 
"that  man  whom  popular  language  has  so  well 
named  the  Wandering  Jew.  The  priest  can  speak 
nowhere  without  summoning  forth  an  eternal  man, 
a  Jew,  who  stands  forth  and  says,  i  It  is  true  ;  I  was 
there."  But  for  this  Church,  which  for  so  long 
had  been  maintained  by  privileges,  he  no  longer 
claimed  more  than  one  thing — liberty  ;  the  liberty 
which  was  hers  by  Divine  right,  for  it  was  not 
the  Ccesars,  it  was  Jesus  Christ  Who  had  said  to 
the  Apostles:  "Go  teach  all  nations,"  and  Who 
had  also  said  to  them,  "  Crucify  your  flesh  with 
its  affections  and  lusts."  "Consequently,"  he 
continued,  "we  do  not  hold  our  liberty  from  the 
Caesars  ;  we  hold  it  from  God,  and  we  will  keep  it 
because  it  comes  from  Him.     Princes  can  unite  to 


THE  NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS      117 

fight  against  the  prerogatives  of  the  Church,  to 
load  them  with  dishonouring  names  in  order  to 
make  them  appear  odious,  to  say  that  they  are  an 
exorbitant  power  that  ruins  States.  We  will  let 
them  speak  on,  and  we  will  continue  to  preach  the 
truth,  to  remit  sins,  to  combat  vices,  to  communi- 
cate the  Spirit  of  God." 

It  was  with  this  proud  declaration  that  he  ended 
his  first  year's  course  of  sermons.  In  the  second, 
he  began  to  expound  the  doctrine  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  not  demonstrating  its  truth  by  means  of 
argument,  but  defining  its  nature.  He  showed  it 
in  a  double  aspect,  at  once  precise  and  mystic, 
giving  formal  and  definite  solutions  on  some 
points,  on  others,  on  the  contrary,  answering  by 
mystery,  and  hiding  the  truth  beneath  the  sym- 
bol. In  order  to  sum  up  this  double  character  of 
Catholic  doctrine,  he  employed  a  somewhat  pom- 
pous eloquence,  which,  none  the  less,  profoundly 
moved  his  hearers.  "  Catholic  doctrine  has,  there- 
fore," he  said,  "a  double  form,  the  form  of  science 
and  the  form  of  faith.  It  is  neither  an  absolute 
science  nor  a  pure  and  simple  faith  ;  it  sees  and  it 
does  not  see  ;  it  demonstrates  and  it  complies,  it 
is  light  and  shade,  like  the  miraculous  cloud 
which  gave  light  to  the  Children  of  Israel  while 
it  blinded  their  enemies.  Do  you  ask  it  for 
facts?  It  will  give  you  the  greatest  facts  in  the 
world.  Do  you  ask  it  for  principles  ?  It  will 
lay  down  principles  that  will  flash  into  the  lowest 
depth  of  the  understanding,  and  will  open  large 
tracts  before  it.  Do  you  ask  it  for  feelings  ?  It 
will  fill  your  empty  heart.  Do  you  ask  it  for  the 
sign  of  antiquity?  It  possesses  it.  For  the  strength 
of  novelty?  It  has  risen  earlier  than  you,  and 
will  surprise  you  by  its  youth.  But  illumined, 
touched,  enraptured  by  it,  do  you  wish  to  tear 
away  the  veil  that  hides  from   you  a  part  of  its 


n8  LACORDAIRE 

majesty?     It  will  throw  you  to  the  ground,  say- 
ing :  '  Worship  and  be  silent.'" 

When,  after  an  interval  of  seven  years,  he 
resumed  his  sermons,  his  plan  was  the  same, 
and,  with  remarkable  strength  of  mind,  he  never 
deviated  a  hair's  breadth  from  it  during  his 
whole  career  as  a  preacher.  He  had  set  him- 
self to  seek  the  proofs  of  Christian  doctrine  in 
experience.  He  went  on  to  show  the  influence 
of  that  doctrine  on  man,  and,  as  a  consequence, 
on  society.  After  devoting  some  eloquent  passages 
to  explaining  what  he  called  the  three  reserved 
virtues — humility,  chastity,  charity — which  formed 
in  his  eyes  the  great  proof  of  Christianity,  its 
popular  proof,  the  daily  bread  of  its  demonstra- 
tion, he  proceeded  in  a  series  of  sermons,  to  which 
he  devoted  no  less  than  a  year,  to  insist  upon  the 
effects  of  Catholic  doctrine  from  a  social  point  of 
view,  for  it  was  to  the  reconciliation  of  the  Church 
with  society  that  he  aspired.  He  showed  the 
Church,  in  the  whole  course  of  her  history,  re- 
fusing to  come  to  terms  with  despotism,  but 
necessary  to  authority,  and  protecting  liberty. 
This  backward  glance  gave  him  an  opportunity 
of  painting  a  picture,  a  little  idealised  perhaps, 
of  Christian  monarchy  as  it  formerly  existed  in 
France  ;  but  there  was,  on  his  part,  all  the  more 
courage  in  showing  this  picture  to  his  hearers, 
since  he  risked  offending  the  prejudices  against  the 
France  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  which  they  were 
imbued.  "  I  have  not  been  such  a  coward,"  he  told 
them,  "as  to  flatter  your  passions  and  your  pre- 
judices, and  to  sacrifice  to  them  fourteen  centuries 
of  our  country's  history,  because  those  fourteen 
centuries  do  not  resemble  the  fifty  years  of  which 
you  are  the  sons."  And  he  added  :  "  Now  what 
will  happen?  Will  the  Christian  monarchy  be 
reformed?     Will   it   be   under   some   other   form 


L 


Lacordaire  in  1840 

From  a  drawing  by  Hippolyte  Flandrin 


To  face  p.  118 


THE  NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS       119 

that  evangelical  law  will  resume  its  empire  in 
the  world?  I  know  not.  But  well  I  know  that 
I  do  not  give  up  hope  in  Providence.  Having 
found  God  in  what  has  preceded  me,  I  hope  to 
find  Him  in  what  will  follow  me  ;  and,  to  use  an 
expression  of  a  great  German  poet,  I  am  a  citizen 
of  the  times  to  come." 

In  this  history  of  the  Church  and  of  humanity, 
as  he  conceived  it,  it  was  in  truth  God  Whom  he 
found  at  every  step.  But  before  reaching  this 
first  and  fundamental  notion,  there  was  still  a 
stage  on  the  ladder  to  be  climbed.  This  stage  was 
the  Christ,  the  Founder  of  the  Church.  A  whole 
series  of  sermons  were  devoted  by  him  to  speak- 
ing of  Jesus,  and  these  sermons  are  perhaps, 
from  one  point  of  view,  his  finest.  It  would,  in 
truth,  be  a  great  error  to  regard  Lacordaire  as  a 
politician,  solely  occupied  with  finding  a  tolerable 
reconciliation  between  the  claims  of  the  Church 
and  those  of  the  State.  If  that  project  seemed  to 
occupy  him  so  much,  it  was  because  this  mis- 
understanding between  the  Church  and  society 
helped  to  lead  souls  astray  ;  and  his  ardent  pre- 
occupation was  to  bring  them  back  to  God. 
There  was  in  him  a  good  deal  of  the  mystic,  and 
sometimes  one  finds  in  his  sermons  cries  of  love 
that  came  from  the  depths  of  his  heart.  "  Lord 
Jesus!"  he  exclaimed,  " during  the  ten  years  I 
have  spoken  of  Thy  Church  to  this  congregation, 
it  is,  in  truth,  always  of  Thee  that  I  have  spoken  ; 
but  at  length,  to-day,  more  directly  do  I  come  to 
Thyself,  Thy  Divine  countenance  which  is  the 
object  of  my  daily  contemplation,  Thy  sacred 
feet  which  so  often  I  have  kissed,  Thy  loving 
hands  which  have  so  often  blessed  me,  Thy  head 
crowned  with  glory  and  thorns,  Thy  life  whose 
savour  I  have  breathed  since  my  birth,  which  my 
boyhood  disregarded,  which  my  youth  regained, 


i2o  LACORDAIRE 

which  my  manhood  worships  and  proclaims  to 
everycreature.  O  Father  !  O  Master  !  O  Friend  ! 
O  Jesus  !  help  me  more  than  ever,  since  being 
nearer  Thee,  it  is  fitting  that  men  should  per- 
ceive Thy  presence  in  me,  and  that  my  mouth 
may  utter  words  that  savour  of  Thy  wonderful 
nearness." 

Lastly,  from  the  Son,  he  passed  to  the  Father, 
from  Christ  to  God,  Who  was  thus  his  goal, 
instead  of,  as  in  the  ordinary  apologetics,  his 
starting-point.  A  full  year's  sermons  were 
devoted,  less  to  proving  His  existence  than  to 
defining  the  nature  of  His  being.  As  a  rule, 
Lacordaire's  sermons  were  of  no  great  philo- 
sophical capacity.  He  was  but  little  of  a  meta- 
physician. By  exception,  however,  and  according 
to  good  judges,  this  was  not  the  case  with  his 
sermons  on  God,  and  some  passages  in  them  are  not 
without  depth,  especially  those  in  which  he  scru- 
tinises with  boldness  of  thought  the  mysteries  of  the 
Divine  ontology.  But  he  did  not  stop  at  this 
goal,  and  he  descended  again  from  God  to  man. 
The  necessary  intercourse  of  man  with  Divinity, 
the  doctrine  of  the  fall  and  of  redemption,  the 
economy  of  the  Divine  government,  formed  the 
conclusion  of  this  long  exposition  which  lasted 
for  seven  years.  Moreover,  he  had  not  finished 
when,  as  we  shall  see,  after  the  coup  d'etat,  he 
gave  up  the  pulpit.  The  famous  sermons  "  On 
Life,"  which  he  preached  at  Toulouse  in  1854, 
belonged  also  to  this  general  plan,  and  formed 
the  logical  conclusion  to  these  long  premisses,  for 
in  them  he  demonstrated  the  influence  of  the 
religious  idea  on  the  inner  life  of  man.  He  thus 
closed  the  circle  and  returned  to  his  starting- 
point.  He  had  begun  by  showing  the  social 
necessity  of  the  Church  ;  he  ended  by  showing 
her  moral  necessity. 


THE  NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS       121 

This  new  plan  of  apologetics  gave  a  remark- 
able extension  to  the  framework  of  the  old  sermon. 
Everything  entered  into  it.  Its  foundation  was 
no  longer  borrowed  solely  from  dogma  or  morals. 
Philosophical,  social,  even  political  considera- 
tions could  all  find  a  place  in  it.  This  was  a 
gain,  for,  by  speaking  to  the  men  of  his  time  on 
questions  that  interested  them,  Lacordaire  made 
many  of  them  learn  again  the  Church's  path 
which  they  had  forgotten,  and  he  taught  that 
path  to  fresh  generations.  It  was  a  danger,  for 
there  are  no  subjects  upon  which  the  eloquence 
of  the  pulpit,  thus  understood,  could  not  seize. 
Lacordaire  escaped  this  danger,  for  in  spite  of 
errors  of  taste,  he  had  sureness  of  intellect.  One 
could  not  say  as  much  of  all  his  imitators  ;  he  is 
perhaps  in  a  slight  degree  responsible  for  certain 
errors  of  modern  preaching.  But  there  remains 
to  him  the  honour  of  having  taken  it  out  of 
the  beaten  tracks  on  which  it  had  crept  for  a 
century,  and  of  having  led  it  into  new  paths. 
Thanks  to  him,  it  has  again  become  a  living 
thing,  associated  with  all  the  movements  of  mind, 
instead  of  being  congealed  in  a  solemn  immo- 
bility. The  sermon  is  no  longer  what  it  was  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  ua  majestic  stole  of 
purple  and  silk,"  as  Taine  defined  it.  It  has 
become  a  garment,  less  rich  perhaps,  but  more 
supple  and  more  popular,  or  at  least  one  which 
adapts  itself  better  to  all  conditions.  For  two 
centuries  it  had  been  the  preacher's  dream  to 
preach  before  the  King.  Lacordaire's  dream  had 
been  to  preach  in  a  public  square.  He  had  been 
the  first  to  understand  where  the  King  henceforth 
was.  This  new  King  has  to-day  his  courtiers  even 
among  the  preachers ;  but  Lacordaire  was  never 
of  their  number ;  never  did  he  pay  him  court  by 
flattering  his  passions  or  borrowing  his  language. 


i22  LACORDAIRE 

With  him  the  sermon  is  no  longer  purple  or  silk, 
but  neither  does  it  ever  become  rags  or  tinsel. 

Not  less  profound  from  a  purely  literary  point 
of  view  is  the  transformation  which  he  accom- 
plished in  preaching.  Before  his  time,  the  rules 
of  the  sermon  were  as  unalterably  fixed  as  those 
of  classical  tragedy.  The  sermon  had  to  begin 
with  the  enunciation  of  the  text.  This  text  had 
to  be  developed  briefly  in  the  exordium,  which 
should  at  the  same  time  indicate  the  divisions  of 
the  sermon — what  were  called  its  points — and  end 
with  an  invocation  to  the  Holy  Virgin.  This  was 
what  Fenelon,  with  a  touch  of  irony,  called  the 
fall  of  the  "  Hail,  Mary!"  Afterwards  came  the 
points  ;  two  or  three,  generally  three,  but  often 
themselves  subdivided,  so  that  a  sermon  ended 
by  containing  seven  or  eight  divisions.  Then 
came  the  peroration,  which  usually  recalled  the 
text  of  the  exordium.  Such  was  the  rigid,  im- 
mutable mould  into  which,  for  two  generations, 
preachers  cast  their  sermons.  Out  of  eighty-two 
in  the  collection  known  under  the  name  of  M Select 
Instructions  from  the  Great  Preachers"  there  is 
not  one  that  departs  from  this  model.  Doubtless 
the  genius  of  a  Bossuet,  of  a  Bourdaloue,  of  a 
Massillon,  had  no  more  been  stifled  by  these 
artificial  rules  than  that  of  a  Racine  or  of  a 
Corneille  by  the  rule  of  the  three  unities.  Genius 
extricates  itself  from  anything.  But,  like  the 
tragic  drama,  the  sermon  languished,  imprisoned 
in  a  narrow  and  conventional  form. 

Victor  Hugo  had  broken  the  mould  of  tragic 
drama ;  Lacordaire  broke  the  mould  of  the  sermon. 
No  longer  a  text,  no  longer  a  "  Hail,  Mary  !  "  no 
longer  a  first,  second,  and  third  point.  An 
exordium,  usually  fairly  simple  unless  some 
special  consideration  led  him  to  strike  his  hearers' 
imagination  at  once  ;  a  rather  summary  indication 


THE  NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS       123 

of  the  subject  he  proposed  to  treat — and  that  was 
all.  No  artificial  divisions  that  shackle  the 
thought.  None  of  those  intermissions  that  com- 
pel it  to  advance  at  a  slow  pace.  On  the  con- 
trary, a  great  liberty  of  procedure,  and,  above  all,  a 
continuous  movement  that  sweeps  it  along  from  the 
first  words  to  the  end.  One  is  seized  and  hurried 
on  by  the  torrent  of  language,  and  the  critical 
sense,  which  might  have  found  a  piece  of  reason- 
ing feeble,  a  metaphor  incorrect,  or  a  phrase 
unsuitable,  remains  subjugated  and  conquered. 
For  movement  will  always  remain  the  orator's 
ruling  quality. 

This  similarity  between  the  revolution  brought 
about  by  Lacordaire  in  the  pulpit  and  by  Victor 
Hugo  in  the  theatre  is  so  striking  that  Lacordaire 
has  often  been  called  a  "  romantic "  preacher. 
Nothing  could  be  less  correct  than  this  definition 
if  by  it  we  mean  to  attach  Lacordaire  to  the 
literary  school  which  was  then  new,  and  which 
appears  so  old  to  us  to-day,  and  to  enrol  him 
under  the  banner  of  the  Romantics.  In  certain 
respects,  on  the  contrary,  he  remained  absolutely 
classic.  It  is  one  of  the  singular  things  about 
that  mind  which  so  readily  opened  to  the  ideas  of 
its  age,  and  whose  glance  was  always  turned 
towards  the  future,  that  he  seems  to  have  ignored 
the  literature  of  his  own  time.  We  could  believe, 
and  it  is  perhaps  true,  that  from  the  time  he  left 
college  he  did  not  read  a  volume  either  of  history 
or  of  poetry.  All  his  historical  learning  is  taken 
from  Plutarch  or  from  Cornelius  Nepos,  and  all 
his  poetical  quotations  from  Voltaire,  whose 
dramas  seem  to  have  inspired  him  with  a  truly 
excessive  admiration.  He  borrows  from  them 
continually,  and  the  verses  he  chooses  for  quota- 
tion are  not  always  the  best.  A  panegyric  of 
Chateaubriand,  a  quotation  from  Lamartine,  are 


i24 LACORDAIRE 

the  only  concessions  he  makes  to  the  moderns. 
His  literary  predilections  remained  faithful  to 
antiquity,  to  the  classics,  and  in  this  respect  it 
is  impossible  to  show  oneself  less  of  a  Romantic 
than  he  did. 

However  personal  and  independent  a  man  is, 
yet  he  never  thinks  and  writes  in  entire  indepen- 
dence of  the  conditions  of  his  time.  Romanti- 
cism has  been  defined  with  exactness  as  "the 
invasion  of  personality  into  literature."  In 
this  respect  Lacordaire  has  indeed  truly  been 
something  of  a  Romantic.  It  is  not  that  he  had 
the  bad  taste  to  place  himself  on  the  stage  and  to 
make  his  hearers  his  confidants,  as  the  lyric  poets 
made  their  readers  their  confidants.  Sometimes 
an  allusion  to  the  troubles  through  which  he  had 
passed,  the  temptations  he  had  known,  an  allusion 
which  certainly  would  not  have  been  permitted  to 
a  preacher  of  the  classic  epoch,  and  that  is  all. 
But  the  human  personality  holds  a  large  place  in 
his  sermons,  and  in  this  respect  he  renewed  the 
substance  as  much  as  the  form  of  preaching. 

Certainly,  among  those  who  have  occupied  the 
Christian  pulpit,  he  is  not  the  first  who  has  given 
proof  of  a  marvellous  knowledge  of  the  soul.  In 
this,  perhaps,  no  one  has  carried  perspicacity  as 
far  as  Bourdaloue.  More  than  one  novelist  who 
takes  pleasure  in  the  study  of  the  weaknesses  and 
failures  of  human  nature  could  draw  lessons  in 
psychology  from  his  sermons.  This  is  carried  to 
such  a  point  that  the  reader  experiences  a  certain 
discomfort  from  it,  and  asks  himself  how  a  man 
whom  he  does  not  know  can  know  him  so  well. 
But  one  feels  in  Bourdaloue  that  it  is  the  director 
who  is  speaking  ;  his  experience  is  taken  from  the 
confessional ;  his  field  of  observation  is  sin. 
Lacordaire's  is  larger  :  it  is  life  itself.  He  under- 
stood the  hopes,  the  anxieties,  the  melancholies, 


THE  NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS      125 

the  passions  of  that  vibrant  and  tumultuous 
generation  which  he  addressed.  His  voice  was 
an  echo,  and  that  echo  returned  to  each  the  words 
that  he  had  spoken  to  himself  in  the  secret  of  his 
heart.  The  man  who  had  faith  in  liberty  was 
obliged  to  admit  that  Lacordaire  spoke  of  it  as 
proudly  as  did  anyone  else.  The  man  who  was 
sad  took  pleasure  in  hearing  him  say  that  melan- 
choly is  the  great  queen  of  souls  who  feel  keenly. 
The  man  who  had  loved  found  again,  even  in  the 
way  in  which  he  spoke  of  the  love  of  God,  some 
throbbings  of  human  love.  M  Could  we,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  love  God,  person  to  person,  like  a 
living  being  whom  we  hold  in  our  arms,  who 
speaks  to  us,  who  answers  us,  who  says  to  us, 
4 1  love  you  ! '  Ah  !  doubtless  that  word  is  decep- 
tive in  man's  mouth  ;  it  is  often  betrayed,  more 
often  forgotten,  but  yet  it  is  spoken  ;  it  is  spoken 
sincerely,  it  is  spoken  with  the  thought  that  it  will 
never  be  retracted.  It  fills  with  its  immensity  one 
day  in  our  existence,  and  when  it  falls  to  the 
ground,  like  a  flower  that  has  faded,  we  find  for  it 
a  sweet  and  sacred  tomb  somewhere  in  the  depths 
of  our  hearts." 

There  is  not  a  human  feeling  that  does  not  find 
its  eloquent  expression  in  Lacordaire,  even  that 
which  it  might  seem  would  be  most  removed  from 
a  priest's  experience,  the  paternal  feeling,  the 
strength,  the  sweetness,  and  the  melancholy  of 
which  no  one  has  painted  so  well  as  he.  "  With 
the  first  shadows  of  age  the  feeling  of  paternity 
sinks  into  our  hearts  and  takes  possession  of  the 
void  there  that  the  affections  which  preceded  it 
have  left.  This  is  not  decay,  do  not  believe  that 
it  is  ;  for,  after  God's  glance  upon  the  world, 
there  is  nothing  finer  than  an  old  man's  glance 
upon  his  child,  a  glance  so  pure,  so  tender,  so 
disinterested,  and  marking  in  our  life  the  very  point 


i26  LACORDAIRE 

of  perfection  and  of  likeness  to  God.  The  body- 
decays  with  age,  perhaps  the  mind  decays  also, 
but  the  soul  by  which  we  love  does  not.  Father- 
hood is  as  much  above  love  as  love  itself  is 
above  friendship.  Fatherhood  consecrates  life. 
That  would  be  a  spotless  and  complete  love  in 
which  from  child  to  father  there  was  the  same 
equal  reciprocity  as  from  friend  to  friend  and  from 
wife  to  husband.  But  nothing  of  the  sort  exists. 
When  we  were  children  we  were  loved  more  than 
we  loved,  and  when  we  have  become  old,  we,  in 
our  turn,  love  more  than  we  are  loved.  We  must 
not  complain  of  this.  Your  children  begin  again 
the  road  that  you  yourselves  have  trod — the  road 
of  friendship,  the  road  of  love,  ardent  paths 
which  do  not  allow  them  to  recompense  that  white- 
haired  passion  which  we  call  fatherhood.  It  is  the 
honour  of  man  to  find  again  in  his  children  the 
ingratitude  he  had  for  his  father,  and  thus  to  end, 
like  God,  with  a  disinterested  feeling." 

We  can  understand  that  such  language  pro- 
foundly moved  congregationswhich  were  not  accus- 
tomed to  hearing  such  human  words  fall  from  the 
height  of  the  pulpit.  Add  to  this  that  Lacordaire 
possessed  in  the  highest  degree  those  external  gifts 
of  the  orator  to  which  the  ancients  attached  so 
much  importance,  and  which  they  summed  up  in 
one  word — action.  In  the  first  place,  he  had  a 
marvellous  voice.  A  little  weak  and  muffled  in 
the  beginning,  it  rose  and  expanded  by  degrees. 
It  became  full  and  sonorous  while  remaining 
measured  and  supple,  and  it  lent  itself  to  every 
shade  of  the  thought,  to  magnificence  as  well  as 
to  sweetness,  to  irony  as  well  as  to  tenderness.  It 
vibrated  to  the  furthest  corners  of  the  churches 
in  which  it  made  itself  heard.  It  went  to  the  very- 
heart  and  stirred  it  to  those  sacred  throbs  which 
the  tones  of  a  man  who  abandons  himself  completely 


THE   NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS       127 

can  always  arouse  in  man.  Then  there  was  his  ges- 
ture, always  ample  and  yet  restrained,  which  some- 
times accentuated  the  language  and  sometimes 
moderated  it,  bending,  like  the  voice,  by  its  infinite 
variety  to  every  shade  of  the  thought,  yet  never 
extended  to  that  exaggeration  and  disorder  which 
destroy  majesty  and  are  incompatible  with  the 
dignity  of  the  pulpit.  But  the  great  secret  of  his  in- 
fluence was  above  all  else  the  passion,  at  once  over- 
flowing and  repressed,  which  one  felt  in  him,  the 
ardour  of  the  man  who  does  not  pursue  his  own 
personal  success  but  that  of  his  cause,  and  whose 
transport  is  not  held  in  by  the  shackles  and 
artifices  of  preparation. 

Lacordaire  was,  in  fact,  in  the  highest  degree 
an  improvisator.  Not  that  he  had  the  intellectual 
presumption,  when  he  had  to  speak  of  the  gravest 
matters  to  the  first  audience  in  the  world,  of  going 
into  the  pulpit  without  having  prepared  his  dis- 
course. But  this  preparation  was,  in  his  case, 
very  internal  and  abstract.  It  was  the  fruit  of  his 
meditations  of  the  evening  before,  sometimes  of 
that  very  morning  ;  meditations  which  he  mingled 
with  ardent  prayers,  and  which  were  more  mystic 
than  literary.  From  these  meditations  nothing 
written  ever  resulted,  except  a  very  short  sketch. 
On  a  single  occasion,  on  account  of  the  difficulty 
of  the  subject,  he  wrote  out  a  funeral  sermon, 
that  of  Mgr.  de  Forbin  Janson,  before  preaching 
it ;  the  result  was  almost  a  failure.  His  plan 
alone  was  determined  upon  in  advance,  but  only 
in  its  broad  lines,  never  in  its  details.  Sometimes 
one  does  not  even  perceive  this,  for  the  progress 
of  the  discourse  is  a  little  undecided.  As  far  as 
the  form  was  concerned,  he  trusted  to  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  moment.  Doubtless  in  a  man  who 
possesses  the  gift  of  eloquence  (and  it  is  precisely 
in  this  that  the  gift   consists)  the  abstract  idea 


i28 LACORDAIRE 

naturally  takes  an  oratorical  form,  and,  when  the 
thought  comes  in  its  logical  order,  the  expression 
by  which  it  is  translated  to  the  mind  comes  at  the 
same  time.  This  was  Lacordaire's  method.  But 
he  often  also  obtained  his  most  powerful  effects 
from  some  movement  which  he  felt  in  his  congre- 
gation and  of  which  he  made  himself  the  inter- 
preter, or  from  some  inner  emotion  which  moved 
himself  and  of  which  his  voice  transmitted  the 
vibration.  Thus  once,  after  an  admirable  passage, 
perhaps  a  little  premeditated,  on  the  Man  Whose 
tomb  is  guarded  by  love  and  Whose  sepulchre  is 
loved,  on  the  Man  Whose  ashes  are  not  cold  after 
eighteen  centuries  and  Whose  every  word  still 
sounds,  Whom  an  unutterable  passion  raises  from 
death  in  order  to  place  Him  in  the  glory  of  a  love 
that  never  fails,  and  Who  finds  apostles  and 
martyrs  in  every  generation,  he  ended  by  saying  : 
"Thou  art  that  Man,  O  Jesus,  Who  hast  been 
willing  to  baptise  me,  to  anoint  me,  to  consecrate 
me  in  Thy  love,  and  Whose  name  alone  at  this 
moment  opens  out  my  heart  and  brings  from  it 
those  tones  which  overwhelm  me  and  which  I 
myself  knew  not  to  be  in  me."  And  he  stopped, 
troubled  more,  indeed,  by  his  own  emotion  than 
by  that  of  his  congregation,  which  interrupted  him 
by  a  prolonged  tremor  of  feeling. 

This  simultaneous  creation  of  thought  and  form 
is  one  of  the  most  complete  efforts  that  can  be 
exacted  from  the  mind.  When  that  effort  is  fre- 
quently renewed,  when  there  is  joined  to  it  an 
expenditure  of  physical  strength,  and,  above  all, 
when  the  orator  only  communicates  a  part  of  the 
fire  by  which  he  is  animated,  he  must  be  quickly 
worn  out  by  this  sublime  game.  One  can  under- 
stand the  state  of  prostration  into  which  Lacordaire 
sometimes  fell  when  his  sermon  was  over,  and  one 
can  reckon  the  extent  to  which  what  he  himself 


THE  NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS      129 

called  the  torments  of  public  speaking  must  have 
shortened  his  life. 

This  eloquence  was  not,  however,  without  its 
faults,  and  these  faults  are  those  which  displease 
us  most  to-day.  Our  epoch  is  charmed  by  truth 
and  sobriety  to  such  a  degree  that  it  has  not 
always  a  sufficient  horror  of  what  is  dull  and 
common.  It  smiles  at  everything  that  is  turgid, 
redundant,  or  declamatory.  Now  turgidness,  re- 
dundance, declamation,  were  familiar  to  the  poets 
and  novelists  of  the  time  in  which  Lacordaire 
lived.  It  is  not  certain  that  the  l<  Orientales " 
and  "  Notre-Dame  de  Paris,"  or  indeed  even 
"Jocelyn"  or  "Raphael"  would  be  welcomed 
with  the  same  favour  to-day  as  they  were  sixty 
years  ago.  It  would  be  surprising  if  Lacordaire 
had  completely  escaped  the  faults  of  the  poets 
and  novelists  which  in  those  days  seemed  to  be 
merits.  A  little  rhetoric  is  sometimes  mingled 
with  his  eloquence.  He  had  a  taste  for  metaphors, 
and  if  he  often  finds  good  ones,  he  sometimes 
ventures  on  those  that  are  incoherent.  He  com- 
pares the  sacred  word,  sometimes  with  "a  sword 
whose  sole  hilt  is  in  God  and  its  double  edge 
everywhere, "  sometimes  with  those  ' '  pebbles  flung 
on  the  surface  of  the  sea,  which  are  carried  over 
the  waves  from  summit  to  summit  to  reach  their  end 
at  last."  He  will  say  that  "the  clouds  carry  the 
sun  whilst  they  hide  it,"  or  even  that  "the  Divine 
unction  raises  the  waves  that  it  calms."  There  are 
also  paradoxes  in  his  method  of  arguing.  He  takes 
a  pleasure  in  insisting  on  doubtful  or  dangerous 
arguments.  Thus  he  will  rely  upon  "the  re- 
pulsion produced  in  the  mind  by  Catholic 
doctrine,"  or  even  upon  "the  passion  of  states- 
men and  men  of  genius  against  Catholic  doctrine  " 
in  order  to  demonstrate  its  truth.  Or  the  thread 
of  his  reasoning  becomes  so  subtle  and  tenuous  that 

K 


i3o  LACORDAIRE 


he  can  no  longer  guide,  or,  a  fortiori,  win  over 
his  hearers.  In  a  word,  his  eloquence  is  unequal. 
Often  it  rises  to  the  heights  ;  sometimes  it  sinks 
into  depths  from  which  it,  it  is  true,  suddenly 
ascends  in  vigorous  flights.  But  it  is  rare  for 
one  of  his  sermons  to  leave  a  complete  impression, 
and  too  often  taste  or  logic  suffers  in  some  passage 
or  other. 

To  a  man  who  had  reperused  these  sermons  of 
Lacordaire  twenty  years  ago,  they  would  have 
seemed  a  little  out  of  date.  To  one  who  takes 
them  up  again  to-day,  they  offer  what  is,  perhaps, 
a  new  interest.  He  has  raised  or  anticipated 
certain  questions  which  still  confront  us  with  a 
poignant  interest.  In  particular,  the  dangers  of 
the  contrast  between  the  growth  of  wealth  and  the 
continuance  of  want  did  not  escape  him.  At 
the  moment  when  the  middle-classes  were  con- 
fidently reposing  in  the  appearance  of  their 
triumph,  he  invited  them  to  listen  to  the  cry  that 
was  raised  from  Manchester,  from  Birmingham, 
from  Flanders,  "a  cry  not  of  poverty  and  want — 
these  are  words  and  things  of  former  days — but  a 
cry  of  pauperism,  that  is  to  say,  of  distress  that 
has  reached  the  condition  of  a  system  and  a 
power,  issuing,  as  an  unexpected  curse,  from  the 
very  growth  of  wealth."  Thus,  on  the  morrow 
of  the  commotion  of  February,  the  shock  of 
which  he  himself  had  felt,  and  after  the  blood- 
stained failure  of  the  attempts  of  the  Socialists,  he 
had  a  special  warrant  for  saying  to  his  hearers, 
once  more  assembled  beneath  the  vaults  of  Notre- 
Dame : 

"The  world  has  reached  a  remarkable  hour  in 
its  destiny.  For  a  century  it  has  endeavoured 
to  found  all  human  things  on  nature  and  reason  ; 
it  believed  that  it  was  capable  of  ruling  by 
itself,  without  the  intervention  of  any  mysterious 


THE  NOTRE-DAME  SERMONS      131 

idea,  of  any  indefinite  power.  You  have  under 
your  eyes  the  result  of  that  great  attempt.  Social 
discipline  has  broken  in  your  hands ;  the  in- 
genious means  by  which  you  expected  to  bring 
it  under  subjection  have  been  found  too  weak  to 
withstand  resistance  and  aggression.  What  was 
generous  in  your  plans  of  reform  has  had  no  better 
fate  than  what  was  chimerical,  and  justice  is 
amazed  to  see  that  she  is  unable  to  give  her  efforts 
either  permanence  or  majesty."  Could  not  Lacor- 
daire  repeat  to-day  what  he  said  then?  Has  not 
the  world,  or  rather  France,  attempted,  is  it  not 
still  attempting,  to  found  all  human  things  on 
nature  and  reason  ?  Have  we  not  under  our  eyes 
the  result  of  that  great  attempt  ?  Has  not  social 
discipline  broken  in  our  hands,  and  have  not  its 
means  been  found  too  weak  to  withstand  resistance 
and  aggression?  Who  would  dare  to  say  the 
contrary?  And  if  there  is  still  hesitation  as  to 
the  remedy,  how  many  are  there  to-day  who 
would  deliberately  reject  that  which  Lacordaire 
advised  when  he  added  :  "  Let  us  call  God  to  our 
help  ;  let  us  recognise  that  we  have  closer  bonds 
with  Him  than  we  have  with  nature,  and  that  to 
abandon  them  out  of  weakness  or  pride  is  to  rob 
the  human  race  of  its  greatest  duties  as  well  as 
of  its  highest  virtues  and  its  most  necessary 
faculties?"  The  social  question,  it  has  lately 
been  said,  is  a  moral  question.  The  phrase  is 
new  and  striking,  but  the  thought  is  old,  for  it  is 
Lacordaire's. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

LACORDAIRE  IN  PRIVATE   LIFE— THE  FRIEND 
AND  THE  PRIEST 

"  If  thy  affections  incline  towards  souls,  love 
them,  O  my  soul  !  but  love  them  in  God.  Lead 
back  with  thee  all  those  whom  thou  canst  lead  ; 
thou  wilt  gain  them,  because  the  Spirit  of  God 
will  speak  by  thy  mouth."  Many  centuries  have 
passed  since  Saint  Augustine  let  slip  these  words 
in  those  burning  "  Confessions "  in  which  he 
uttered  before  God  his  ardour  and  his  remorse  ; 
and  yet  is  it  not  of  Lacordaire  that  they  make 
us  think?  If,  among  the  sacred  orators  that  our 
age  has  known,  there  is  one  who  has  reclaimed 
souls,  it  is  assuredly  he  whose  eloquence  gathered 
beneath  the  long-deserted  vaults  of  Notre-Dame 
a  crowd  such  as  the  old  basilica  had  not  seen 
since  the  Middle  Ages.  But  if  he  gained  them 
over,  it  is  not  only  because  the  Spirit  of  God 
spoke  by  his  mouth,  it  is  also,  and  above  all, 
because  he  loved  them. 

This  love  of  the  priest  for  souls  is  the  great 
secret  of  the  influence  that  he  exercises.  One 
can  say  that  his  strength  is  in  proportion  to  his 
love.  But  what  is  the  origin  of  this  love,  so 
peculiar  in  its  nature,  a  love  that  has  not  engaged 
the  observations  of  psychologists,  and  that  has 
escaped  the  observations  of  a  Stendhal,  because 
he  was  incapable  even  of  conceiving  the  idea  of 
it?     Is  it  a  special  feeling  of  a  special  nature,  one 

132 


PRIVATE   LIFE  133 

of  the  supernatural  fruits  of  the  priestly  vocation, 
which  is  developed  by  ministry,  and  is  blended 
with  the  other  duties  of  the  priesthood  ?  Is  it,  in 
a  word,  what  is  called  in  the  language  of  religion 
a  grace  of  condition  ?  Is  it  not,  on  the  contrary, 
a  feeling,  doubtless  purer,  more  noble,  more  ele- 
vated, but  yet  of  the  same  order  as  human  love  ? 
Assuredly,  a  true  priest  will,  in  order  to  save  a 
soul,  never  shrink  from  any  step,  any  peril ;  he 
will  bring  the  sacraments  to  a  patient  in  a  plague- 
stricken  hospital,  and  absolution  to  a  man  dying  on 
the  field  of  battle.  That  is  duty.  But  understanding 
of  the  needs  of  a  heart,  participation  in  the  suffer- 
ings it  experiences,  divination  of  the  remedies  it 
needs,  close  association  with  all  the  struggles 
in  which  it  engages,  the  joy  of  its  triumphs,  the 
gloom  and  almost  the  humiliation  of  its  defeats, — 
that  is  something  else.  It  is  love,  and  Lacordaire 
himself  has  written:  ti  There  are  not  two  loves; 
the  love  of  heaven  and  that  of  earth  are  the  same, 
save  that  the  love  of  heaven  is  infinite." 

I  do  not  think  I  advance  anything  profane  or 
disrespectful  when  I  say  that  all  the  great  shep- 
herds of  souls  of  whom  the  Catholic  Church 
boasts  have  brought  so  many  hearts  after  them 
to  God  only  by  their  powerful  faculty  for  love. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  believe  that  the  austere  obliga- 
tions of  the  priesthood  destroy  this  faculty  in  the 
priest.  They  only  transform  it  by  extricating  it 
from  the  less  pure  feelings  that  disturb  the 
ordinary  run  of  men  ;  but,  perhaps,  by  this  very 
fact,  they  strengthen  it  and  render  it  more  per- 
manent, as  the  cutting  off  of  parasite  branches 
adds  to  the  vigour  of  the  trunk.  It  is  Lacordaire 
also  who  is  going  to  tell  us,  in  terms  full  of 
delicacy,  how  this  transformation  takes  place. 
"  It  would  be  strange  if  Christianity,  founded  at 
once  on  the  love  of  God  and  of  men,  should  only 


i34  LACORDAIRE 

result  in  barrenness  of  soul  in  regard  to  every- 
thing that  is  not  God.  Only  there  is  often  passion 
in  friendships,  and  it  is  this  which  makes  them 
dangerous  and  hurtful.  Passion  disturbs  at  once 
the  senses  and  the  reason,  and  too  often  it  even 
ends  in  evil,  in  sin.  What  ruins  love  is  egotism, 
not  the  love  of  God  ;  and  there  never  have  been 
on  earth  more  permanent,  more  pure,  or  more 
tender  ardours  than  those  to  which  the  saints 
gave  up  their  hearts,  hearts  at  once  emptied  and 
filled,  emptied  of  themselves  and  filled  with  God." 
Doubtless  without  thinking  of  it,  Lacordaire 
has  traced  in  these  lines  the  history  of  his  moral 
life.  His  emptied  heart  was  filled  with  holy 
friendships ;  but  before  filling  it,  he  began  by 
emptying  it.  We  have  seen  how  pure  and  severe 
his  youth  had  been.  It  is  superfluous  to  add  that 
the  emotions  it  escaped  were  unknown  to  his 
priesthood.  u  I  am  always  astonished,"  he  wrote 
to  a  young  man,  "at  the  power  which  the  sight 
of  external  beauty  has  over  you,  and  at  the  little 
strength  you  have  to  shut  your  eyes.  I  truly  pity 
you  for  your  weakness,  and  I  am  astonished  by 
it  as  by  a  great  phenomenon  that  I  do  not  under- 
stand. Never  since  I  have  known  Jesus  Christ 
has  anything  seemed  to  me  beautiful  enough  to 
make  me  look  at  it  with  concupiscence.  It  is 
such  a  little  thing  to  a  soul  that  has  once  seen 
God  and  felt  Him."  But  this  vision  of  God  did 
not  prevent  him  from  seeing  souls  also,  and  from 
becoming  attached  to  them.  Only  those  who  felt 
its  worth  and  its  beauty  within  their  hearts  were, 
according  to  him,  called  to  the  priesthood,  which 
he  defined  as  a  sacrifice  of  man  added  to  that  of 
God.  In  this  very  sacrifice  of  every  feeling  of 
selfishness  and  desire  he  found  the  necessary 
security  that  enabled  him  to  surrender  himself 
to  those  attachments  which  the  natural  tenderness 


PRIVATE  LIFE  135 

of  his  heart  made  necessary  to  him.  We  should 
only  half  know  him  if  we  did  not  observe  the 
place  that  these  attachments  have  held  in  his 
heart.  When  a  young  man,  he  had  an  affection 
for  Montalembert ;  at  a  later  age,  for  the  Abbe 
Perreyve.  He  had  a  like  affection  for  Madame 
Swetchine,  Countess  Eudoxie  de  la  Tour-du-Pin, 
and  a  person  less  known,  whose  name,  however, 
comes  sometimes  into  his  letters  to  Madame 
Swetchine. 

We  have  already  seen  how  close  was  his  in- 
timacy with  Madame  Swetchine.  To  the  Countess 
de  la  Tour-du-Pin  he  paid  a  rare  tribute  at  the 
time  of  her  death.  "  She  had  been  for  twenty 
years,"  he  said,  "one  of  the  forces  of  my  life." 
Lacordaire's  correspondence  with  Madame  Swet- 
chine and  with  Madame  de  la  Tour-du-Pin  has 
been  published  in  full.  A  communication  to 
which    I   am   indebted   has  permitted   me  to  see 

his    letters   to    Madame   de   V ,    and    I    shall 

borrow  largely  from  that  correspondence. 

Lacordaire's  correspondence  with   Madame   de 

V opens  with  a  note  he  wrote  to  her  on  April 

18th,  1836.  It  ends  on  October  29th,  1861,  with 
a  letter  which  he  had  not  even  strength  to  write 
with  his  own  hand,  and  which  he  merely  signs. 
On  November  21st  following  he  died  ;  four  years 
later  she  too  died.  They  were  almost  of  the  same 
age.  Both  their  lives  thus  flowed  along,  side  by 
side,  and  the  bond  that  united  them  was  never 
broken. 

Whence  arose  the  first  link  between  them? 
This  is  rather  difficult  to  conjecture,  for  they 
were  born  far  apart.  Madame  de  V be- 
longed, by  birth  as  well  as  by  marriage,  to  the 
Legitimist  world.  Her  husband,  a  man  of 
position,  whose  name  often  comes  into  the  corre- 
spondence, subscribed  to  the  "Quotidienne,"  and 


136 LACORDAIRE 

this  divergence  of  opinions  gives  rise  to  frequent 

jests  in  their  letters.     Madame  de  V does  not 

seem,  however,  to  have  taken  as  keen  an  interest 
as  her  husband  in  political  affairs.  As  far  as 
one  can  divine  her  character  through  the  letters 
Lacordaire  writes  to  her  (for  her  own  have  been 
destroyed),  she  was  less  a  woman  of  commanding 
intellect  than  of  a  noble  and  tender  nature, 
passionately  devoted  to  those  whom  she  loved, 
and  taking  pains  to  serve  them  with  discreet 
generosity  and  delicacy.  One  can  judge  of  her 
from  the  following  incident. 

Lacordaire  had  always  been  poor.  His  mother's 
death  had  placed  him  in  possession  of  an  income 
of  forty-eight  pounds  a  year,  which  formed  his 
whole  property,  but  the  capital  from  which  this 
income  was  derived  was  being  quickly  dissipated 
by  his  improvident  hands.  The  two  or  three  people 
acquainted  with  this  state  of  affairs  were  uneasy 

about  him.     How  was  Madame  de  V informed 

of  this?  Probably  by  Madame  Swetchine,  whom 
she  also  knew.  She  believed  that  she  could  fur- 
nish a  remedy  by  making  the  Archbishop  of  Paris 
the  intermediary  for  a  generous  proposal.  Lacor- 
daire refused  it  in  a  letter  full  of  dignity  and  good 
grace.  " Thank  God,"  he  answered,  "I  need 
nothing,  I  am  free  and  I  am  content.  If  Provi- 
dence had  failed  me  in  the  natural  course  of 
things,  I  should  have  found  it  very  pleasant  for 
my  affairs  to  be  restored  through  your  heart  ;  but 
things  are  not  in  this  state.  I  will  keep  the 
memory  of  this  most  intimate  mark  of  attachment 
which  you  have  given  me,  and  I  pray  you  also 
to  keep  for  me  those  feelings  which  I  have 
enjoyed  for  several  years,  and  of  which  you  have 
given  me  this  last  proof." 

From  that  time  forward  the  ice  is  broken. 
Lacordaire  no  longer  writes  to  her  as  "  Countess," 


PRIVATE  LIFE  137 

but  as  "  Dear  friend,"  and  intimacy  begins.  Thus 
she  is  one  of  the  first  persons  to  whom  he  discloses 
his  great  design — to  restore  the  Order  of  Saint 
Dominic  in  France,  and  to  begin  by  going  to 
Rome  to  assume  the  habit.  This  design  met 
with  a  most  emphatic   opposition  from   Madame 

de  V ,  and  during  a  short  visit  that  he  paid 

her  in  the  country,  warm  discussions  took  place 
between  them.  That  was  not  the  career  she 
desired  for  him.  She  had  dreamed  of  fame,  of 
high  offices  in  the  church,  first  a  canonry,  and 
then  a  bishopric,  and  he  was  going  to  sacrifice  all 
this  for  distant  and  chimerical  projects.  Lacor- 
daire  remained  firm.  He  was  one  of  those  men 
who  come  to  an  inner  decision  after  thorough 
reflection,  and  whom  no  influence  afterwards 
shakes.  But  he  feared  lest  this  obstinacy  on  her 
part  might  throw  a  shadow  over  a  very  sensitive 
friendship,  and  he  explained  himself  to  her  in  a 
letter  which  he  wrote  some  days  afterwards,  when 
he  was  already  on  his  way  to  Rome  : 

"  Here  I  am  already  very  far  from  you,"  he  said 
to  her,  "  in  spite  of  all  your  good  advice,  and  next 
Monday  I  shall  be  in  Rome.  It  is  not  that  I  have 
not  thought  a  good  deal  of  the  reasons  you  have 
given  me,  and  these,  strong  in  themselves,  were 
still  stronger  by  the  disinterested  affection  that 
dictated  them.  But  you  know  it  is  difficult  to  up- 
root an  idea  that  has  taken  its  place  in  our  minds, 
and  towards  the  accomplishment  of  which  a  force 
that  is  in  things  urges  us.  .  .  .  Let  me  trust 
myself  to  God  Who  has  protected  me  so  much  since 
my  childhood,  and  Who  has  given  me  such  a 
friend  as  you.  I  count  entirely  on  your  friendship. 
Do  not  be  discouraged  because  I  have  not  yet 
yielded  to  your  influence  in  a  matter  of  capital 
importance.  We  shall  not  have  matters  as  im- 
possible as  this  to  deal  with  every  day." 


138  LACORDAIRE 

Nearly  eighteen  months  were  still  to  pass  before 
Lacordaire  could  put  his  design  into  execution,  and 
during  those  eighteen  months,  divided,  moreover, 
by  a  long  stay  in  France,  he  lost  no  opportunity  of 

gradually  familiarising  Madame  de  V with  his 

project.  "  You  must  accustom  yourself,"  he  wrote 
to  her,  "  to  my  robe  of  white  wool.  We  shall 
have  only  this  winter  in  which  to  laugh  a  little. 
Or  rather  be  persuaded  that,  if  the  frock  does  not 
make  the  monk,  neither  does  the  monk  lose  any- 
thing that  is  true  and  simple,  good  and  worth 
envying.  We  shall  thus  be  the  best  friends  in  the 
world,  and  nothing  will  prevent  us  from  going 

for  walks  with   your  husband   at   Ch ,  or   at 

B ." 

Lacordaire's  return  to  Paris  interrupted  the 
correspondence,  which  at  this  period  consists 
only  of  some  insignificant  little  notes.     Madame 

de  V had  not  yet  reconciled   herself  to  the 

idea  of  the  white  robe.  But,  opposed  as  she  re- 
mained to  Lacordaire's  projects,  her  natural 
generosity  did  not  allow  her  to  refuse  all  interest 
whatever  in  them.  The  envelope  which  she  had 
tried  to  make  him  accept,  by  using  Mgr.  de  Quelen 
as  an  intermediary,  had  still  remained  in  the 
latter's  hands.  She  thought  that  perhaps  she 
could  now  renew  her  offer  with  more  success. 
However,  she  consulted  the  Abbe  Affre,  then  Vicar- 
General.  "  M.  Lacordaire  has  refused  personal 
assistance,  but  he  will  not  refuse  help  intended 
to  advance  his  future  establishment,"  replied  the 
latter.  And  some  days  afterwards  Lacordaire 
thanked  her  simply.  "  I  need  not  tell  you  that  I 
am  thankful  for  all  the  fresh  proofs  of  attachment 
you  have  given  me  during  the  past  week.  That 
memory  will  always  accompany  me,  and  will 
relieve  the  pains  which,  doubtless,  God  reserves 
for  me  in  the  course  of  my  life."     And  as  he  was 


PRIVATE   LIFE  139 

about  to  leave  Paris  a  few  days  later,  he  ended  a 
last  letter  with  the  word  "  Courage." 

In  the  first  days  of  May,  1839,  Lacordaire  went 
away  a  second  time,  taking  with  him  two  com- 
panions. All  three  were  to  assume  the  Dominican 
habit  at  Rome  in  the  beginning  of  June.  He 
stopped  for  some  days  at  Milan,  and  from  there 
he  wrote  two  long  letters,  one  to  Madame 
Swetchine,  which  has  been  published  in  the 
volume  that  contains  their  correspondence,  and 
the  other  to  Madame  de  V . 

"  If  I  had  written  to  you  every  time  my  thoughts 
turned  to  you,  you  would  already  have  received 
many  letters  from  me,"  he  begins  ;  and,  after 
giving  some  details  about  his  journey,  he  goes 
on,  "  I  am  writing  to  you  at  a  very  pleasant 
moment,  because  I  am  delighted  with  my  two 
travelling  companions  of  the  past  week,  and 
because  I  have  brought  from  Paris  memories  that 
accompany  me  everywhere.  You  are  perhaps  think- 
ing that  these  memories  ought  to  be  changed  into 
regrets,  and  that  my  joy  is  not  unlike  ingratitude. 
If  so  you  are  wrong ;  there  are  regrets  which 
console.  Can  one  think  of  what  is  good,  lovable, 
sincere,  without  a  certain  joy  coming  into  the 
soul,  even  with  tears?  .  .  .  The  thought  of  you, 
then,  consoles  me,  and  does  not  sadden  me,  in 
spite  of  absence.  I  think  that  God  has  prepared 
for  me  in  you  a  true  and  sure  friend,  at  a  moment 
when  my  life  had  to  undergo  a  decisive  test.  I 
think  with  grateful  joy  of  all  that  you  have  done 
for  me,  which  older  friends  could  not  have  done.  I 
see  in  you  God  and  yourself,  and  through  this 
mingling  you  are  not  entirely  absent,  since  God  is 
never  absent.  ...  I  tell  you  this  from  the  bottom 
of  my  heart.  I  look  back  to  you  with  a  feeling 
which  is  pleasant,  which  is  pure,  which  is  full. 
That  is  rare  here  below,  because   something   is 


i4o  LACORDAIRE 


almost  always  lacking  in  our  affections,  and  the 
presence  of  that  void  causes  much  suffering.  I 
have  met  very  few  souls  who  do  not  cause  suffer- 
ing. My  friends  are  at  Vespers  in  the  cathedral. 
I  am  alone  whilst  I  write  to  you,  but  they  are 
going  to  return,  happily  for  me,  so  that  I  may  not 
write  what  I  want  to  say  to  you  with  too  much 
emotion.  Tell  your  husband  that  I  look  on  him 
as  a  friend  in  spite  of  the  difference  in  our  ages, 
and  that,  whatever  Providence  may  do  with  me, 
the  days  I  have  passed  in  his  house  will  always  be 
in  my  thoughts." 

During  the  whole  year  that  Lacordaire's  novi- 
tiate lasted,  the  correspondence  between  him  and 

Madame  de  V was  very  regular,  a  letter  about 

every  three  weeks.  In  all  those  letters  Lacordaire 
takes  an  evident  care  to  dissipate  his  friend's  pre- 
judices and  apprehensions.  "I  hope,"  he  wrote 
to  her,  "that  the  Dominican  habit  will  make  me 
holier,  but  not  less  attached  to  you."  In  another 
letter  he  stated  in  detail  the  obligations  of  the 
monastic  life,  and  he  sought  to  reconcile  her  to 
the  rigours  of  the  Dominican  rule.  "It  is  the 
life  of  a  canon,"  he  wrote.  "You  wished  with  all 
your  might  that  I  should  be  a  canon  ;  you  see 
I  have  fulfilled  your  wishes  exactly." 

We  feel  strongly,  however,  through  all  these 

letters,  that  Madame  de  V remains  rebellious. 

One  fear  dominates  her  :  it  is  that  the  Order  of 
Saint  Dominic  might  absorb  Lacordaire  and  keep 
him  in  Italy.  She  has  only  one  thought,  his 
return  to  Paris.  Thus  she  finds  herself  led  on  to 
work,  in  some  sort  against  herself,  for  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Order  in  France.  She  occupies  her- 
self with  the  purchase  of  a  house  at  Charonne, 
which  might  become  the  seat  of  the  first  convent 
of  the  Order.  When  this  project  failed,  she  wanted 
Lacordaire  to  accept  a  chair  at  the  Sorbonne  which 


PRIVATE  LIFE  141 

it  seems  that  M.  Cousin  would  have  been  disposed 
to  offer  him.  Lacordaire  has  to  explain  at  length 
that,  as  he  has  vigorously  attacked  the  university 
monopoly,  it  would  be  little  to  his  honour  to  profit 
by  that  monopoly.  She  then  attaches  herself  to 
another  idea.  The  Archbishop  of  Paris  being  at 
the  point  of  death,  she  presses  Lacordaire  to  come 
forward  as  a  candidate  to  succeed  him.  And  the 
future  Dominican  answers  her  in  this  rather  sharp 
letter  :  "  The  wish  you  have  of  seeing  me  among 
the  candidates  is,  with  all  due  deference  to  your 
intelligent  friendship,  a  wish  that  would  cost  me 
very  dearly  if  it  were  realised.  Do  you  imagine 
the  hell  there  must  be  in  the  hearts  of  all  those 
worthy  people  who  preach  evangelical  abnega- 
tion, and  who  rule  their  lives  in  order  to  have 
a  bishopric ;  who  do  not  say  a  word  and  do  not 
make  a  gesture  that  can  place  an  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  their  dream  ?  The  lowest  Dominican  lay 
brother  is  a  hundred  times  happier  and  more  re- 
spectable than  any  of  them.  Do  you  think,  besides, 
that  a  bishopric  suits  my  nature,  and  that  I  should 
be  comfortable  under  the  heap  of  papers  and 
administrative  notes  that  to-day  constitute  a 
bishop's  life?  Pray,  then,  let  us  leave  bishoprics 
alone,  and  let  us  be  satisfied  with  the  choice 
that  is  made  for  them,  with  the  sincere  desire 
that  they  may  go  to  good  priests.  Neither  you 
nor  I,  dear  friend,  shall  see  the  new  Church  which 
God  is  preparing  for  France.  It  will  need  more 
than  a  century  to  form  it ;  but,  at  least,  unless  our 
country  perishes,  it  will  be  formed  eventually. 
Now  this  is  all  in  the  future,  and  the  man  who 
only  wants  to  conquer  in  his  own  imperceptible 
moment  is  like  the  man  who  would  prefer  to  eat  a 
pip  rather  than  to  plant  it  and  make  a  tree  for 
posterity.  Those  who  like  pips  are  innumerable, 
from  humming-birds  to  parish  priests  and  others 


i42  LACORDAIRE 

who  aspire  to  the  mitre.  Do  not  be  one  of  the 
number,  I  beg  you,  and  may  friendship  never 
cause  you  to  lose  the  natural  greatness  of  your 
spirit. " 

However,  Lacordaire's  novitiate  was  reaching 
its  end.  His  assumption  of  the  habit  was  about 
to  take  place,  and  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  leave 
La  Quercia.  Where  would  he  go  afterwards? 
After  a  long  hesitation  he  wrote,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  the  Master-General  of  the  Dominicans,  a  letter 
in  which  he  asked,  in  his  own  name  and  that  of 
his  companion,  for  permission  to  remain  three 
years  in  Rome,  in  the  centre  of  the  Order,  in 
order  to  become  initiated  into  its  traditions.  But 
it  was  not  without  apprehension  that  Lacordaire 

communicated  this  letter  to  Madame  de  V .    He 

felt  himself  so  far  away  now,  so  obscure,  so  much 
of  a  monk  !  And  he  feared  an  outburst  from  her 
friendship.  At  first  she  resigned  herself  to  it.  It 
is,  therefore,  rather  difficult  to  understand  what 
took  place  between  them  some  months  afterwards, 
and  why  Lacordaire,  after  having  left  two  consecu- 
tive letters  unanswered,  ended  by  addressing  her 
these  stern  lines:  "  Confidence  enters  with  diffi- 
culty into  a  man's  heart  and  leaves  it  quickly. 
Let  us  allow  time  to  pass  over  the  ruins  you 
have  made.  I  shall  bless  God  if  ever  He  renews 
the  time  that  has  been  broken  off,  and  places  balm 
on  a  wound  that  I  would  like  to  cure." 

The  wound  was,  however,  to  be  cured  more 
quickly  than  he  thought.     A  fresh  letter,  in  which 

Madame  de  V probably  implored  his  pardon, 

reached  him  at  a  painful  moment.  Lacordaire 
had  become  passionately  devoted  to  a  young  man 
whom  he  had  brought  from  France,  and  with 
whom  he  had  assumed  the  Dominican  habit. 
This  young  man  was  on  his  death-bed  when 
Lacordaire  received  Madame  de  V 's  letter.  How 


PRIVATE  LIFE  143 

could  he  have  the  courage  to  cut  the  bonds  of  an 
old  affection  with  his  own  hands  at  the  very  moment 
when  death  was  severing  those  of  a  new  one? 
From  the  bedside  of  his  dying  friend  Lacordaire 
accordingly  wrote  some  affectionate  lines  to  his 
repentant  friend.  But  he  did  not  wish,  however, 
to  resume  a  regular  correspondence  before  he 
came  to  an  explanation  with  her  on  the  misunder- 
standing that  divided  them.  u  You  tell  me  your- 
self in  the  letter  of  the  twenty-fourth,"  he  wrote, 
"that  'it  is  not  in  you  to  associate  yourself  with 
great  ideas.'  I  do  not  take  this  phrase  literally, 
but  it  is  a  fact  that  you  have  never  appeared  to  me 
to  interest  yourself  in  the  destiny  of  the  Church, 
in  the  future  of  the  world.  You  made  a  happy 
life  for  me  in  your  heart,  a  well-rounded  life, 
embellished  with  a  glory  that  ran  no  risk ;  I 
seemed  to  you  to  be  almost  mad  and  ungrateful 
because  I  rejected  so  promising  a  destiny.  That 
is  what  you  have  continually  called  '  not  under- 
standing you.'  Well,  yes,  I  do  understand  you  ; 
nothing  is  easier  than  to  understand  you.  Who 
does  not  understand  the  joy  of  comfort,  of  a  safe 
and  restricted  life,  of  the  satisfactions  of  friend- 
ship ?  Who  does  not  understand  that,  '  humanly 
speaking,'  such  a  life  is  better  than  to  revive  an 
Order,  to  live  in  a  cloister,  to  sacrifice  one's  life 
to  a  thousand  obscure  duties  and  a  thousand 
chances  of  ruin?  But  have  such  hopes  ever 
made  a  strong  and  talented  man  hesitate  as  to 
how  he  would  act  for  God  or  for  himself?  If  I 
had  listened  to  you,  I  should  be  in  appearance 
the  happiest  man  in  the  world,  while  in  reality 
I  should  have  to  struggle  against  all  the  instincts 
of  my  nature  as  well  as  against  the  remorse  of  a 
conscience  that  had  erred  from  its  right  course.  I 
should  have  had,  you  say,  the  fame  of  speaking 
and  writing;  and  is  that  nothing?     It  is  much 


i44  LACORDAIRE 


when  one  has  received  that  single  vocation  from 
God ;  it  is  nothing  to  him  who  has  received 
another.  What  would  you  have  said  if  I  had 
received  a  vocation  to  be  a  missionary  in  China, 
and  if  I  had  left  Paris  for  the  pleasure  of  running 
the  risk  of  dying  of  hunger  or  of  having  my  head 
cut  off,  not  to  mention  other  things?  What  would 
you  have  said  of  the  martyrs  of  the  primitive 
Church,  who  doubtless  were  worth  quite  as  much 
as  I  am  ?  Do  you  not  see,  whether  you  are  or  are 
not  a  Christian,  that  the  greatest  men  have  never 
chosen  the  easiest  path  ?  I  could  easily  accuse 
you,  if  I  wished,  of  i  not  understanding.'  But 
what  is  the  good  of  accusations  ?  It  is  a  misfor- 
tune for  me  to  know  that  you  are  opposed  to  the 
designs  to  which  I  have  dedicated  my  life  ;  but 
that  misfortune  does  not  entail  that  all  ought  to 
be  ended  and  impossible  between  you  and  me.  I 
have  been  the  first  to  think  that  '  poor  friendship ' 
could  find  its  place  everywhere.  You  alone  have 
appeared  for  a  moment  to  believe  the  contrary. 
That  is  what  has  hurt  me  horribly.  .  .  J9 

After  this  storm,  relations  resume  their  course, 
but  "poor  friendship  "  continued  to  endure  many 

trials.     Madame  de  V could  not  put  an  end  to 

her  anxiety.  She  was  continually  indulging  in 
fancies.  After  a  fresh  stay  in  France,  Lacordaire 
had  returned  to  Rome,  bringing  back  with  him 
nine  novices.  The  Convent  of  San  Clemente  had 
been  conceded  to  them,  and  it  was  Lacordaire's 
hope  that  this  convent  would  become  the  cradle 
of  the  Dominican  province  of  France.  Suddenly, 
without  anything  to  enable  them  to  anticipate  so 
severe  a  blow,  an  order  to  disperse  reached  the 
novices.  Half  of  the  little  band  were  sent  to  the 
convent  of  Bosco  in  Piedmont,  the  other  to  La 
Quercia,  and  Lacordaire  was  forbidden  to  occupy 
himself  henceforth  with  the  novices  whom  he  had 


PRIVATE   LIFE  145 

brought  with  him.  A  less  resolute  man  would 
have  bent  before  the  storm,  and  abandoned  his 
enterprise.  Lacordaire  stood  firm,  and  he  re- 
mained   in    Rome   alone   but   immovable   in   his 

design  and  in  his  hope.     But  Madame  de  V 

was  a  prey  to  mortal  terror.  She  already  saw 
Lacordaire  plunged  in  the  cells  of  the  Inquisition, 
and  she  wanted  him  to  escape  by  flight  from  the 
perils  with  which  she  saw  him  surrounded.  Lacor- 
daire had  to  reassure  her,  first  by  gentle  raillery, 
then  by  again  opposing  the  vocation  of  a  servant 
of  God,  as  he  understood  it,  to  the  ideal  of  a 
pleasant  and  peaceful  life  which  she  dreamed  of 
for  him. 

4 'Dear  friend,"  he  wrote  to  her,  "you  always 
astonish  me  by  the  charm  of  your  mind  and  the 
weakness  of  your  counsel.  You  are  like  a  pas- 
senger on  a  ship,  who,  at  the  first  breath  of  wind, 
always  asks  to  be  put  ashore,  and  who  cannot 
imagine  that  the  wind  helps  us  to  travel  all  the 
more  quickly.     Be  calm  then,  once  more. 

u  You  will  have  to  see  many  things  before  they 
put  me  in  prison.  It  may  happen  in  time,  for 
only  God  knows  what  is  laid  up  for  our  lives  ; 
but  the  events  that  could  compromise  my  liberty 
would  have  done  so  if  I  were  in  the  habit  of  a 
secular  priest  as  much  as  if  I  were  in  a  monk's  frock. 
No,  my  friend,  you  will  see  me  again.  You  will 
see  me  as  often  as  I  like,  and  I  shall  like  as  often 
as  the  interests  of  the  Church  will  allow  me.  Is 
the  tranquil  lot  you  desire  for  me  suited  to  a  man  ? 
Does  one  arrange  one's  life  in  the  shade  or  in 
the  sun  according  to  one's  pleasure?  Oh,  how  I 
should  like  to  see  you  having  a  soul  no  less  affec- 
tionate, but  able,  in  spite  of  affection,  to  encourage 
vigorous  action  !  You  said  to  me  the  other  day 
that  men  live  by  ideas  and  women  by  feelings. 
I  do  not  admit  that  distinction.     Men  live  also  by 


i46  LACORDAIRE 

feelings,  but  by  feelings  sometimes  more  exalted 
than  yours,  and  those  are  what  you  call  ideas, 
because  those  ideas  embrace  a  more  universal 
order  than  that  to  which  you  attach  yourself 
oftenest.  Dear  friend,  we  can  do  nothing  without 
love  here  below,  and  be  certain  that  if  we  had 
only  ideas,  we  would  be  the  most  powerless  beings 
in  the  world." 

The  regularity  and  frequency  of  this  corre- 
spondence were,  however,  to  diminish  with  Lacor- 
daire's  return  to  France,  though  it  never  entirely 
ceased.  From  the  moment  when  he  came  back  to 
France  in  a  Dominican  habit  to  that  in  which  he 
was  definitely  established  at  Soreze,  Lacordaire  did 
not  cease  to  lead  the  life  of  a  "  wandering  friar," 
preaching  from  town  to  town — at  Bordeaux,  at 
Strasburg,  at  Nancy — or  visiting  the  different 
houses  of  his  Order,  which  developed  rapidly. 
By    her    inexhaustible    generosity,    Madame    de 

V counted  for  a  great  deal   in  the  rapidity 

of  that  development,  and  the  Dominicans  of 
to-day  are  not  perhaps  aware  of  all  they  owe 
to  this  unknown  benefactress.  There  had  been 
on  her  side  a  continual,  discreet  intervention, 
unknown  to  everybody,  and  all  the  more  meri- 
torious, as  at  the  beginning  she  had  been  most 
opposed  to  the  enterprise.  She  had,  however, 
familiarised  herself  with  this  new  existence, 
whose  rigours  she  had  exaggerated,  and  the 
monk's  robe  had  ceased  to  frighten  her.  She 
had  even  persuaded  Lacordaire  to  allow  him- 
self to  be  painted  as  a  Dominican  by  Chasseriau. 
It  is  this  portrait  which  was  exhibited  in  the  Salon 
of  1840.  But  when  the  Salon  closed,  the  portrait 
went  to  B ,  where  it  was  hung  in  an  excel- 
lent position.  Lacordaire  used  to  joke  about  it. 
"I  am  delighted  to  know  that  my  portrait  is  so 
well  placed  in  your  dining-room,  and  offered  to 


PRIVATE   LIFE  147 

the  admiration  of  all  who  come  to  see  you — 
bishops,  priests,  gentlemen.  There  is  matter  for 
conversation  for  a  long  time  in  that,  and  who 
knows  whether  one  day,  when  you  and  I  are  dead, 
I  shall  not  become  to  your  descendants  an  old 
relative  of  the  time  before  the  Revolution,  and 
all  that  can  be  connected  with  a  portrait  when 
Providence  so  wills  it?" 

However,  Madame  de  V 's  affection  always 

remained  a  little  restless  and  stormy.  If,  during 
his  frequent  absences,  Lacordaire  remained  three 
weeks  or  a  month  without  writing  to  her,  she 
believed  herself  forgotten  and  sacrificed  to  new 
interests.  She  complained,  and  Lacordaire,  in 
turn,  showed  himself  a  little  offended  by  her  com- 
plaints. "  Your  letter  of  January  30th,  dear, 
good  friend,"  he  wrote  to  her  from  Bordeaux, 
"has  caused  me  some  pain.  It  seems  that  our 
friendship  does  not  grow  old  with  the  years,  and 
that  it  is  still  subject  to  the  doubt  which  surrounds 
everything  that  is  new.  Because  I  do  not  write 
to  you  at  the  end  of  every  three  weeks,  because 
I  am  given  a  warm  welcome  here,  you  accuse 
me  in  your  heart  of  forgetting  you,  of  sacri- 
ficing the  old  to  the  new,  of  being  a  leaf  that 
blows  with  the  first  breath  of  wind  that  comes. 
Is  there  anything  more  unjust?  ...  I  would  thus 
have  a  right  to  recriminate  against  you ;  but  I 
prefer  to  assure  you  anew  of  the  reality  of  my 
attachment,  created  not  only  by  gratitude,  but  by 
a  sincere  fondness  for  your  affection,  by  a  very 
high  esteem  for  your  faculties,  and  by  general 
sympathy.  I  have,  besides,  been  on  many  occa- 
sions too  unhappy  ever  to  forget  those  who  then 
cared  for  me.  You  have  been  one  of  the  three  or 
four  persons  who  have  encouraged  and  saved  me 
in  difficult  times  ;  the  more  firmly  established  my 
existence  becomes,  if  ever  it  should  become  firmly 


148  LACORDAIRE 

established,  the  more  I  shall  remember  with 
tenderness  those  who,  by  holding  out  their  hands 
to  me  in  evil  days,  have  contributed  to  bring 
about  stability  at  last.  I  am  assuredly  lacking  in 
certain  qualities ;  but  I  believe  I  possess,  even  to 
a  superstitious  degree,  faithful  affection,  regard 
for  the  past,  and  the  melancholy  of  remembrance. 
Only,  my  duties  prevent  me  from  giving  as  much 
to  nature  as  another  could,  and  I  will  also  confess 
that  I  have  a  grievance  against  you,  and  that  is 
that  I  see  you  remaining  so  aloof  in  mind  from 
the  activities  of  my  life.  The  activities  of  a  man 
are  his  whole  being,  his  whole  energy,  his  whole 
history.  They  may  be  hazardous  ;  they  ought  on 
that  account  to  inspire  all  the  more  interest.  I 
suffer,  therefore,  from  seeing  a  soul  with  which 
I  am  so  intimate  holding  itself  aloof  from 
my  designs  ;  I  suffer  from  this,  but  as  it  were 
from  a  strange  anomaly  which  I  respect,  pitying 
myself  for  having  so  little  power  of  persuading  a 
person  whom  I  love  so  much.  The  day  when 
God  will  permit  this  cloud  to  disappear  will  be 
one  of  the  happiest  days  in  my  life  ;  I  hasten  it 
with  all  my  prayers,  and,  were  it  to  delay  for 
ever,  yet  I  should  not  doubt  you  ;  I  shall  always 
believe  in  your  heart,  in  your  understanding,  in 
your  devotion,  which  lack  nothing  but  the  gift  of 
conferring  on  me  one  pleasure  more." 

However,  these  agitations  grow  calm  with 
years,  but  at  the  same  time  the  correspondence 
becomes  less  active  and  less  familiar.  Had  their 
feelings  changed  ?  No.  But  the  intensity  of  his 
life  and  of  his  duties  absorbed  Lacordaire  more 
and  more,  and  left  him  less  time  for  friendship. 
And  then  expansion  is  a  gift  of  youth.  In  pro- 
portion as  he  advances  along  the  way  of  which 
Dante  speaks,  a  man  shuts  himself  up  more  in 
himself,  and  when  he  has  passed  its  middle  point, 


Lacordaire 


From  an  engraving  by  Martinet  of  Bonnassieux's  portrait  (1841) 

To  face  p.  148 


PRIVATE  LIFE  i49 

he  lives  a  life  more  and  more  internal  and  solitary, 
down  to  the  day  when,  the  last  witness  of  a  past 
that  has  disappeared,  he  is  no  longer  known  or 
understood  save  by  himself.  It  is  known  that 
Lacordaire's  last  years  were  passed  in  semi- 
retirement  at  Soreze.    Formerly  Madame  de  V 

had  desired  fame  and  peace  for  him.  He  now 
had  peace,  but  he  no  longer  had  fame.  During 
this  time  she  herself  continued,   in   Paris   or  at 

B ,  to  live  the  tranquil  life  of  a  woman  who  is 

no  longer  young,  and  who  devotes  herself  entirely 
to  the  duties  of  her  family  and  of  society.  Their 
preoccupations  had  become  different.  One  per- 
ceives this  from  the  tone  of  the  letters,  which 
become  fewer  and  fewer.  The  word  "  madame  " 
comes  often  into  them.  Sometimes  Lacordaire 
adds  to  it  that  of  "old  friend."  Thus  do  almost 
all  human  feelings  die  with  years.  However,  one 
still  sometimes  finds  in  the  letters  as  it  were  a 
feeble  echo  of  the  former  affection.  "  Often  it 
happens,"  Lacordaire  writes  to  her,  "that  I  miss 

the  times  when  I  used  to  go  to  visit  you  at  B . 

Shall  I  ever  see  you  there  again?  God  alone 
knows,  but,  whatever  happens,  time  does  not 
efface  the  memories  you  have  left  me." 

He  was,  however,  to  see  her  again  at  B , 

but  in  extremely  sad  circumstances.  Lacordaire's 
death  was  at  once  premature  and  slow  in  coming  : 
premature,  because  he  died  at  the  age  of  fifty- 
nine  ;  slow,  because  the  struggle  was  a  long  one 
between  the  disease  that  carried  him  off  and  an 
originally  robust  constitution  that  fatigue  and 
perhaps  excessive  austerities  had  undermined. 
When  illusion  as  to  his  state  was  no  longer  pos- 
sible, the  affection  that  was  but  sleeping  awoke, 

and  expressed  itself  on  Madame  de  V 's  part 

by  ardent  tokens.  There  is  hardly  a  letter  of 
Lacordaire's  during  the  last  year  of  his  life  that 


i5o  LACORDAIRE 

does  not  contain  the  expression  of  his  gratitude 
for  some  mark  of  devotion.  Too  weak  to  write, 
he  could  no  longer  do  more  than  sign  his  name. 

Twice  Madame   de  V made  the  journey  to 

Soreze  to  see  him.  At  last  she  procured  that 
after  an  unavailing  course  of  waters,   Lacordaire 

went  to  spend  a  fortnight  at  B .     Twenty-two 

years  had  passed  since  Lacordaire,  still  a  young 
priest,  had  made  his  first  visit  to  this  same  place 
before  starting  for  Rome,  and  that,  immovable 
in  his  design  of  assuming  the  Dominican  habit, 
he  had  firmly  repelled  the  objections  of  a  despair- 
ing friendship.  Many  events  had  succeeded  one 
another  since  that  time  ;  many  changes  had  taken 
place  in  them  and  about  them  ;  but  both  their 
hearts  had  remained  the  same,  and  as  Madame  de 

V accompanied    his    failing    steps   in   those 

shaded  walks  which  Lacordaire  mentions  so  often 
in  his  letters,  he  could  feel,  in  the  depths  of  his 
heart,  how  true  were  his  words  in  his  "Life  of 
Mary  Magdalene":  "We  must  have  lived  in 
order  to  be  sure  of  being  loved." 

As  she  noticed  his  extreme  difficulty  in  walking, 

Madame  de  V sent  him  a  carriage  as  soon 

as  he  had  returned  to  Soreze.  Lacordaire  thanked 
her  for  it:  "Yesterday  I  made  use  for  the  first 
time  of  the  brougham,  which  has  taken  longer  to 
reach  here  than  you  thought.  It  is  very  comfort- 
able, and  painted  a  sober  hue.  Nevertheless,  I  am 
very  confused  when  I  get  into  this  carriage  and 
see  all  that  you  have  done.  If  I  get  better,  you 
will  certainly  have  contributed  a  great  deal  to  my 
health,  and  at  the  same  time  to  my  consolation. 
But  God  alone  knows  what  will  happen,  and  the 
weakness,  if  possible,  increases  every  day." 
Feeling  that  he  was  lost,  she  wanted  to  go  to 
Soreze  so  as  to  see  him  a  last  time.  He  had  to 
dissuade  her.     "Conversation  fatigues  me  greatly, 


PRIVATE  LIFE  151 

and  it  would  pain  me  not  to  be  able  to  give 
you  a  good  welcome.  You  will  oblige  me  by 
giving  up  this  project  from  which  I  could  derive 
no  consolation,  only  embarrassment  of  heart  and 
mind  and  physical   fatigue."     The   last  letter  is 

to  prevent  Madame  de  V from  sending  the 

then  celebrated  Dr.  Rayner  from  Paris  to  Soreze. 
Some  days  afterwards  there  came  a  first  telegram, 
sent  by  a  faithful  servant,  "Father  Lacordaire  is 
very  ill  and  has  received  the  last  sacraments." 
Then,  the  next  day,  a  second,  "  Father  Lacordaire 
is  dead."    These  telegrams,  still  in  their  envelopes, 

were  locked  up  by  Madame  de  V herself  in 

a  wooden  coffer  which  contained  all  the  Father's 
letters.  From  her  death,  which  took  place  four 
years  afterwards,  these  letters  were  never  taken 
out  of  it.  I  am  the  only  person  to  whom  they 
have  been  entrusted.  When  I  opened  that 
coffer  it  seemed  to  me  a  delicate  perfume 
arose  from  it,  and  it  was  not  without  reverent 
emotion  that  my  hand  disturbed  those  relics  of  two 
souls  that  loved  each  other. 

I  have  just  shown  what  Lacordaire  was  as  a 
friend.  I  should  like  also  to  say  what  he  was  as 
a  priest ;  I  shall  not  add,  and  as  a  monk.  I  could 
not,  in  truth,  take  it  upon  me  to  answer  the 
question  raised  by  Father  Chocarne,  when,  after 
having  revealed  the  secret,  unknown  by  all,  of 
the  incredible  penances  which  Lacordaire  imposed 
on  himself,  he  asked  if  he  was  right  or  wrong  in 
lifting  the  veil  that  hid  the  mysteries  of  his 
monastic  life.  Some  souls,  indeed,  may  have 
been  edified  by  learning  that  this  popular 
preacher,  this  member  of  the  French  Academy, 
had  actually  in  the  nineteenth  century,  in  the 
privacy  of  his  cell,  renewed  those  macerations 
the  story  of  which  astonishes  us  and  leaves  us 
almost  incredulous  when  we  meet  them   in   the 


i52  LACORDAIRE 

lives  of  the  saints  of  the  primitive  Church.  But 
others,  too  weak  perhaps,  have  asked  themselves 
if  the  Dominican  rule  ought  not  in  itself  to  have 
seemed  sufficient  to  him,  and  if  he  would  not 
have  better  served  the  great  cause  to  which  he 
had  devoted  his  life  by  preserving  his  strength 
for  it  rather  than  by  exhausting  his  body  and 
assuredly  shortening  his  days.  These  are  ques- 
tions too  lofty  to  be  handled  by  the  profane,  and 
as  such  I  shall  abstain  from  doing  so.  I  shall 
merely  limit  myself  to  telling  those  who  have 
smiled  or  been  indignant  at  Father  Chocarne's 
rather  over-detailed  account,  that  one,  before 
smiling  or  being  indignant,  ought  to  understand, 
and  that  there  are  certain  states  of  soul  the 
secret  of  which  it  is  necessary  to  know  before 
we  judge  them.  In  1845  Lacordaire  had  been 
Lent  preacher  at  Lyons.  In  that  town,  where 
religious  ardour  has  always  shown  itself  so 
keen,  his  success  outstripped  anything  he  had 
obtained  before.  It  was  a  regular  delirium.  One 
evening,  when  his  sermon  had  called  forth  par- 
ticular enthusiasm,  he  was  waited  for  at  dinner. 
He  did  not  come.  Someone  went  to  look  for 
him.  He  found  him  pale  and  in  tears  at  the  foot 
of  a  crucifix.  "What  is  the  matter,  Father?"  he 
said.  "I  am  afraid."  "  Afraid  of  what  ?  "  "  Of 
this  success."  When  a  soul  has  reached  this 
degree  of  scruple,  it  is  not  surprising  if  it  seeks 
by  penance  to  correct  those  inward  movements  that 
appear  to  us  to  be  pardonable  weaknesses ;  and  pen- 
ance, above  all  when  it  is  unknown,  silent,  and 
hidden,  is  always  deserving  of  respect. 

The  man  who  was  so  harsh  to  himself  was 
gentle  to  others.  He  knew  how  to  show  weak 
souls  the  consideration  which  they  needed,  and 
to  lead  them  along  paths  that  were  not  too  rough. 
It  is  not,  however,  direction,  properly  so  called, 


PRIVATE   LIFE  153 

that  held  the  principal  place  in  Lacordaire's  life. 
His  life,  always  militant,  and  for  a  long  time 
wandering,  did  not  allow  him  to  exercise  it  under 
its  most  habitual  form,  that  of  interviews  and 
of  confession.  But  those  who  have  pursued  him 
with  constant  ill-will  have  been  guilty  of  extreme 
exaggeration  when  they  say  that  he  never  con- 
verted anybody.  On  the  contrary,  many  souls 
appealed  to  him,  and  he  enjoyed  in  their  com- 
munion the  best  reward  of  a  life  dedicated  to  the 
hard  labours  of  apostleship. 

In  order  to  preserve  his  influence  over  those 
who  appealed  to  him,  he  had  recourse  especially 
to  correspondence.  Accordingly,  correspondence 
held  a  large  place  in  his  life.  Every  day  he 
devoted  several  hours  to  it.  A  thing  that  one 
could  hardly  believe,  if  those  who  have  lived  with 
him  were  not  agreed  in  confirming  it,  is  that  he 
was  very  methodical  in  his  habits.  Not  his  room 
or  his  cell  only,  but  even  his  table,  was  always 
in  excellent  order.  Papers,  pens,  pencils,  and 
penknife  were  always  arranged  in  the  same  place. 
He  sat  down  at  this  table  always  at  the  same 
time,  and  began  to  write  rapidly  in  a  small,  fine, 
close  hand,  without  erasures,  a  great  number  of 
letters  that  were  afterwards  placed  in  a  pile 
always  on  the  same  corner  of  his  desk.  With 
the  same  regularity,  when  he  was  in  Paris,  he 
went  to  the  confessional  on  certain  days  and  at 
certain  fixed  hours.  He  waited  in  the  sacristy 
until  the  hour  struck,  and  at  the  first  sound  of 
the  clock  he  was  seen  to  open  the  door  and  to 
appear  with  the  regularity  of  an  automaton,  a 
fact  which  sometimes  brought  a  smile  to  the  lips 
of  the  penitents.  Direction  has  accordingly  occu- 
pied a  larger  place  in  Lacordaire's  life  than  has 
been  attributed  to  him,  especially  in  the  second 
half  of  his   life.     However,    we    only   possess   a 


i54  LACORDAIRE 

single  one  of  his  spiritual  correspondences,   his 
letters  to  the  Baroness  de  Prailly. 

These  letters  were  published  twenty-three  years 
after  Lacordaire's  death,  and  only  four  after  that 
of  Madame  de  Prailly,  but  by  an  express  act  of 
her  will,  and  as  a  token  of  gratitude  towards  him 
whom  she  called  "  her  first  and  only  real  priest." 
It  was  a  chance  meeting  with  Lacordaire,  coin- 
ciding with  a  grave  illness,  that  determined  her 
to  unbosom  herself  to  him.  At  the  beginning  of 
their  relations,  he  wrote  to  her:  "  Whoever  attains 
to  knowing  God  and  loving  Him  has  nothing  to 
desire,  nothing  to  regret.  He  has  received  the 
supreme  gift  that  ought  to  make  us  forget  every- 
thing else,"  and  this  short  fragment  is  enough  to 
sum  up  the  spirit  which  inspired  his  direction. 
The  love  of  God  is  the  supreme  gift  which  he 
endeavours  to  communicate  to  a  soul  that  is  still 
worldly ;  but  in  order  to  attain  his  end  he  applies 
himself  to  develop  her  faculties  and  to  elevate  her 
mind  whilst  he  gladdens  her  heart.  He  leads  her 
straight  to  Jesus  Christ,  by  broad  and  direct  paths, 
without  delaying  her  with  minor  observances. 
When  he  receives  her  first  confidences,  he  finds  her 
a  prey  to  inner  griefs  in  which  he  sees  the  charac- 
teristics of  an  ardent  and  noble  nature.  "  Souls 
that  are  feeble  and  rather  sunken,"  he  wrote  to 
her,  "find  here  below  an  element  that  suffices  for 
their  understanding  and  that  satiates  their  love. 
They  do  not  discover  the  emptiness  of  visible 
things  because  they  are  incapable  of  plumbing 
them  very  deeply.  But  a  soul  whom  God,  by  the 
way  He  has  created  it,  has  drawn  closer  to  the 
infinite,  soon  feels  the  narrow  limits  that  encom- 
pass it.  It  has  an  unknown  sadness,  and  for  a  long 
time  it  is  ignorant  of  the  cause  of  this  ;  it  readily 
believes  that  such  and  such  a  concurrence  of 
circumstances    has    troubled    its    life,    while    its 


PRIVATE   LIFE  155 

trouble  comes  from  a  higher  source.  It  is  remark- 
able, in  the  lives  of  the  saints,  that  almost  all 
have  felt  that  melancholy  of  which  the  ancients 
said  that  there  was  no  genius  without  it.  In 
truth,  melancholy  is  inseparable  from  every  far- 
reaching  mind  and  from  every  heart  that  has  depth. 
This  is  not  to  say  that  we  ought  to  take  pleasure 
in  melancholy,  for  it  is  a  malady  that  enervates 
us  when  we  do  not  throw  it  off,  and  it  has  only 
two  remedies — death  or  God." 

Thus  the  first  thing  with  which  he  occupies 
himself  in  order  to  cure  this  melancholy  is  to 
order  and  to  fill  the  life  of  her  who  has  entrusted 
herself  to  him.  He  rejoices  that  she  has  not 
waited  until  the  decline  of  age  to  renounce  the 
world  and  its  gorgeous  frivolities,  and  that  she 
brings  to  God  a  heart  still  young,  still  capable 
of  illusions,  and  not  empty  and  worn  out.  But 
he  wants  to  nurture  this  soul.  Ignorance  is  a  great 
enemy.  What  is  there  to  believe  when  one  has 
not  knowledge  ?  What  is  there  to  love  when  one 
has  not  seen  ?  Daily  reading  nurtures  the  mind 
and  disgusts  it  with  vain  things.  He  will  not, 
however,  have  frivolous  or  affected  reading.  It 
is  necessary  to  go  to  the  great  things.  When  we 
can  read  Homer,  Plutarch,  Cicero,  Plato,  David, 
Saint  Paul,  Saint  Augustine,  Saint  Theresa, 
Bossuet,  Pascal,  and  others  like  them,  we  are 
very  guilty  if  we  waste  our  time  on  drawing-room 
trifles. 

This  drawing-room  life,  this  frivolous  and  easy 
existence  to  which  Madame  de  Prailly  had  been 
accustomed  by  her  education,  appeared  to  him  in 
the  first  place  to  be  the  great  enemy.  "  If  a  drop 
of  the  faith  of  the  saints  fell  on  you,"  he  wrote  to 
her,  "  you  would  not  have  enough  tears  to  weep 
for  yourself,  to  weep  for  your  slothful,  soft, 
insignificant   life,    so   full    of   pride    and    of  the 


156  LACORDAIRE 

satisfaction  of  the  senses."  Under  Lacordaire's 
influence,  she  detaches  herself  little  by  little  from 
that  life.  Her  health,  always  precarious,  helps  him 
in  separating  her  from  the  world.  She  spends 
long  months  in  the  South,  in  the  solitude  of  her 
Costebelle  villa.  But  then  another  anxiety  takes 
possession  of  her  director,  lest  she  should  come 
to  detach  herself  too  much  from  life  itself,  and 
lest  she  should  fall  into  a  sort  of  indifference. 
' i  When  the  soul  has  attained  a  certain  degree 
of  elevation  towards  God,"  he  writes  to  her,  "it 
easily  despises  life,  and  then  God  attaches  it  to 
life  by  the  idea  of  duty.  Life  is  an  important 
function,  although  very  often  we  do  not  see  its 
utility.  Mere  drops  of  water,  we  ask  ourselves 
what  need  the  ocean  has  of  us.  The  ocean  could 
answer  us  that  it  is  only  composed  of  drops  of 
water.  Do  not  hate  life  then,  even  while  you  are 
detaching  yourself  from  it." 

After  having  thus  drawn  this  soul  away  from  the 
life  of  the  world,  and  having  attached  it  to  the  life 
of  duty,  Lacordaire  next  endeavours  to  procure  it 
peace.  He  had  evidently  to  deal  with  an  ardent, 
uneasy  nature,  never  satisfied  with  itself,  always 
sighing  after  a  state  in  which  it  does  not  yet  find 
itself.  He  reproves  her  with  gentleness.  "  You 
must  not  abandon  yourself  to  sadness  and  despond- 
ency. Nothing  is  more  injurious  to  the  health  of 
the  body  and  of  the  soul.  Saint  Paul  says  that 
joy  and  peace  are  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
There  is  in  Him  a  fulness  which  drives  away 
melancholy,  as  the  rising  sun  drives  away  the 
shadows.  Reach  joy  then.  It  is  the  great  sign 
of  God,  I  desire  it  for  you  with  all  my  heart,  now 
that  I  am  going  away.  You  are  still  too  human 
and  not  divine  enough.  That  is  the  reproach  that 
follows  the  prayer." 

I  should  not  like  to  multiply  these  quotations 


PRIVATE  LIFE  157 

indefinitely.  Spiritual  correspondences  are  always 
a  little  monotonous,  and  it  is  not  everybody  who 
cares  for  this  special  form  of  literature.  What, 
however,  gives  an  interest  to  those  letters  of 
Lacordaire  to  Madame  de  Prailly  is  that  he  does 
not  appear  in  them  solely  in  the  part  of  director, 
sometimes  consoling  and  sometimes  reprimand- 
ing. With  the  perfect  simplicity  that  was  in  him, 
he  lets  us  see  himself  as  he  was,  with  his  alter- 
nations of  ardour  and  dejection,  subject  to  sadness, 
to  discouragement,  to  inward  exhaustion.  Some- 
times, with  touching  humility,  he  compares  the 
state  of  his  own  soul  with  that  of  his  penitent, 
sometimes  he  goes  little  short  of  placing  himself 
beneath  her,  "  I  am  very  glad  you  feel  that  you 
have  reached  peace.  It  is  the  great  sign  and  the 
great  good.  I  do  not  know  whether  I  possess  it, 
or  whether  I  have  ever  had  it.  Troubles,  sad- 
nesses, often  ascend  into  my  soul,  for  I  have  seen 
and  I  continually  hear  of  sad  things.  But  it  is  true 
that  a  certain  strength  brings  me  back  to  rest  in 
God.  The  soul,  at  the  end  of  its  mortal  career, 
ought  to  fall  from  this  world  like  a  ripe  fruit. 
Doubtless  this  is  what  God  intends  by  all  the 
miseries  He  sends  us.  But  suffering  does  not 
always  detach,  and  it  does  not  always  give  peace. 
Happy  are  they  who  do  not  suffer  in  vain  ! " 

This  is  how  Lacordaire  appears  to  us,  as  friend 
and  as  priest,  in  the  intimacy  of  his  correspond- 
ence. Madame  Swetchine  rightly  said,  "  He  will 
only  be  known  by  his  letters."  I  should  like  to 
see  a  discreet  and  judicious  selection  made  from 
those  letters,  which  to-day  are  scattered  through 
nine  different  volumes,  and  have  not  all  the  same 
interest.  That  selection  would  make  them  easier 
to  read,  and  would  be  a  gain  to  his  memory. 
So  profound,  in  truth,  has  been  the  change  in  our 
literary  tastes  during  half  a  century,  that,  to  some 


158  LACORDAIRE 

persons  of  severe  taste,  his  eloquence  seems  a 
little  antiquated  to-day.  But  the  man  still  lives  in 
his  letters,  at  once  simple  and  eloquent,  and 
written  without  the  shadow  of  preoccupation 
about  thought  and  style.  "The  more  I  like  any- 
one," he  wrote  to  Madame  de  Prailly,  "the 
simpler  I  am  in  my  relations  with  them,  whether 
I  am  speaking  or  writing,  except  on  the  natural 
occasions  that  oblige  me  to  take  a  more  elevated 
tone.  I  write  quickly  and  without  art,  and  I  have 
an  invincible  aversion  for  style  when  it  does  not 
come  of  itself  from  the  very  nature  of  the  subject. 
Believe  then  that  I  show  you  my  soul  when  I  tell 
you  what  I  think,  and  do  not  ask  more  of  me."  It 
is,  in  truth,  Lacordaire's  soul  that  one  finds  in  his 
letters,  and  that  soul  was  one  of  the  noblest,  one 
of  the  most  open  to  delicate,  proud,  and  generous 
feelings  that  have  ever  throbbed  in  a  human 
breast.  It  was  Vauvenargues  who  said,  but 
Lacordaire  loved  to  repeat  the  saying  that  "  sooner 
or  later  one  takes  pleasure  only  in  souls." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE— LAST  YEARS 

During  the  whole  duration  of  the  July  Govern- 
ment, Lacordaire  did  not,  upon  the  whole,  live 
badly  with  the  public  authorities.  Doubtless  when 
he  undertook  to  restore  the  Order  of  Friars 
Preachers  in  France  he  had  gone  counter  to  cer- 
tain illiberal  prejudices  that  existed  in  the  mind 
of  the  time,  but  he  ended  by  conquering  them. 
He  even  found  a  good  deal  of  favour  from  some 
politicians,  among  others  from  M.  Guizot.  There- 
fore, while  carefully  preserving  his  independence, 
he  had  not  carried  opposition  so  far  as  some 
Catholics  had  done.  He  had  not  disapproved  of  the 
arrangement  which,  after  the  famous  campaign 
that  M.  Thiers  undertook  against  the  Jesuits,  had 
been  brought  about  between  the  Court  of  Rome 
and  the  King's  Government.  The  Jesuits  seemed 
to  him  to  have  been  a  little  compromising  and 
the  Government  to  have  been  fairly  cautious. 
Moreover,  he  did  not  believe  that  any  system 
other  than  the  Constitutional  Monarchy  was  pos- 
sible in  France.  "I  believe,"  he  had  written  to 
Lamennais  at  the  time  of  their  separation,  "  that 
during  my  lifetime,  and  even  after  it,  a  republic 
cannot  be  established  in  France  or  in  any  other 
place  in  Europe."  Thus  he  was  in  no  way  bound 
to  the  Republican  party,  and,  in  his  "  Letter  on 
the  Holy  See,"  published  in  1836,  he  even  judged 
it  with  excessive  severity.     "  One  might  say  that 

i59 


i6o  LACORDAIRE 

there  exists  in  France  no  other  parties  than  the 
party  of  the  ruling  monarchy  and  that  of  the 
candidate  monarchy,  if  one  did  not  discover  in 
the  very  lowest  section  of  society  a  certain  faction 
which  believes  itself  to  be  republican,  and  of  which 
people  have  not  the  courage  to  speak  ill  solely  be- 
cause it  has  opportunities  of  cutting  off  your  head 
in  the  interval  between  two  monarchies.  .  .  ."  He 
even  added,  after  showing  that  France  owed  its 
moral  unity  to  monarchy,  "  that  in  politics,  France 
can  only  be  a  monarchy  or  a  chaos,  because 
there  exists  no  real  mean  between  general  sub- 
mission to  a  single  head  and  the  radical  inde- 
pendence of  all  citizens." 

It  is,  therefore,  difficult  to  explain  the  sudden 
enthusiasm  which  the  events  of  1848  inspired  in 
Lacordaire.  People  have  sometimes  spoken  of 
the  July  sunstroke.  It  seems  that  he  had  his  sun- 
stroke in  February,  and  yet  there  was  then  a  very 
pale  sun.  In  order  to  understand  the  feelings  on 
which  he  acted,  we  must  recall  certain  incidents 
that  marked  the  foundation  of  the  Second  Republic 
in  France.  Just  as  after  the  events  that  brought 
about  the  fall  of  the  Restoration  the  Catholic 
clergy  had  to  suffer  from  their  too  close  alliance 
with  a  form  of  government  that  had  become  un- 
popular, so  they  benefited  by  the  silent  but 
constant  hostility  that  they  had  displayed  towards 
the  July  Government.  In  more  than  one  locality 
the  parish  priests  threw  themselves  with  ardour 
into  the  republican  movement,  and  they  were  soon 
to  be  seen  blessing  the  trees  of  liberty.  But  of 
all  these  incidents  there  was  one  which  must  have 
especially  impressed  Lacordaire,  and  which  has 
often  been  told.  At  the  time  of  the  sack  of  the 
Tuileries,  some  of  the  insurgents  who  had  pene- 
trated into  Queen  Marie  Amelie's  chapel  took 
possession   of  a  crucifix   that  they  found   there. 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE    161 

Instead  of  appropriating  it,  as  they  did  many 
objects  belonging  to  the  royal  family,  they  car- 
ried it  solemnly  to  the  church  of  Saint  Roch,  and 
as  this  singular  procession  passed  by,  heads  were 
respectfully  uncovered.  This  unexpected  mani- 
festation could  not  fail  to  strike  vividly  an 
imagination  as  impressionable  as  Lacordaire's, 
and  doubtless  it  contributed  to  give  birth  in  him 
to  the  illusion  that  he  was  going  to  see  the  dream 
of  his'  youth  realised,  the  alliance  of  Church  and 
State  in  freedom,  or  rather  the  State  freely  accept- 
ing the  moral  direction  of  the  Church.  Let  us 
not,  indeed,  forget  that  if  interpenetration  (to  use 
his  own  expression)  was,  in  his  eyes,  odious  and 
intolerable,  separation  seemed  to  him  only  a 
desperate  remedy,  and  the  superiority  of  the 
spiritual  society  over  the  material  society  remained 
the  ideal.  "That  system,"  he  added  in  a  letter 
to  M.  Foisset,  from  which  I  have  already  quoted, 
"  is  so  great  a  moderating  influence  on  the  people 
and  on  the  ruling  power  that  a  truly  Christian 
nation  has  never  understood  any  other,  and  that  it 
throws  itself  into  it  of  its  own  impulse  and  with- 
out thinking."  But  that  system  seemed  to  him  to 
be  applicable  only  on  the  day  when  kings  and 
peoples  would  ask  for  it  on  bended  knees.  Had  that 
day  come  ?  Was  the  Church  going  to  govern  the 
peoples  as  in  the  Middle  Ages  she  had  ruled  the 
kings?  Was  she  going  to  play  the  magnificent 
part  of  a  moderator  of  liberty  in  a  Catholic  re- 
public? Lacordaire  believed  that  this  was  so,  and 
that  hope  is  the  only  thing  that  can  explain  the 
impetuosity  with  which  he  threw  himself  into 
the  thick  of  the  fray. 

On  the  morrow  of  the  catastrophe  he  gave  a 
striking  pledge  of  his  adhesion  to  the  new  form  of 
government.  He  was  for  the  first  time  to  have 
preached  a  Lenten  course  of  sermons  in  Paris,  his 

M 


i62  LACORDAIRE 

sermons  having  previously  been  in  Advent.  In 
agreement  with  the  Archbishop,  Mgr.  Afire,  he 
spontaneously  advanced  the  opening  of  the  course, 
which  he  fixed  for  Septuagesima  Sunday,  that  is 
to  say,  precisely  on  the  27th  of  February.  On  the 
appointed  day,  with  the  barricades  by  which  Paris 
had  been  covered  still  standing,  Lacordaire  as- 
cended the  pulpit.  The  congregation  was  huge. 
It  was  thought  that  some  allusion  to  recent  events 
might  escape  from  the  orator's  lips,  and  accord- 
ingly the  audience  was  attentive  and  alert.  This 
expectation  was  not  falsified.  He  began  by  thank- 
ing the  Archbishop  for  the  example  he  had  given 
to  all  in  those  days  of  great  and  memorable  emo- 
tion. "  You  have  summoned  us,"  he  said,  "  into 
this  cathedral  on  the  morrow  of  a  revolution  in 
which  everything  seemed  to  have  perished  ;  we 
have  come ;  here  we  are,  tranquil  under  these 
secular  vaults  ;  we  shall  learn  from  them  to  fear 
nothing  for  religion  and  for  France  ;  both  will 
pursue  their  career  under  the  hand  of  the  God 
Who  protects  them  ;  both  thank  you  for  having 
believed  in  their  indissoluble  alliance,  and  for 
having  discriminated  between  the  things  that  pass 
and  those  that  remain  and  grow  stronger  from  the 
very  changefulness  of  events."  Then  he  entered 
upon  his  subject,  which  was  the  existence  of  God, 
and  after  pointing  out  the  universality  of  the  belief 
in  God,  after  showing  that  God  is  popular,  he  ex- 
claimed :  "  Thanks  be  to  God,  we  believe  in  God, 
and,  if  I  doubted  your  faith,  you  would  rise  up  and 
repel  me  from  your  midst ;  the  doors  of  this  Metro- 
politan church  would  open  of  their  own  accord 
against  me ;  and  the  people  would  need  but  one  look 
to  confound  me  ;  the  people  that,  a  moment  ago,  in 
the  very  midst  of  the  intoxication  of  their  strength, 
after  having  overthrown  several  generations  of 
kings,  bore  in  their  submissive  hands,  and  asso- 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE    163 

ciated,  as  it  were,  with  their  triumph,  the  image 
of  the  Son  of  God  Who  was  made  man."  These 
words  called  forth  applause  which  it  was  necessary 
for  Lacordaire  to  silence,  and  outside  they  caused 
an  immense  sensation.  People  saw  in  them  a 
consecration  given  by  the  Church  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  for  some  time  Lacordaire,  like  God,  was 
popular. 

If  Lacordaire  needed  encouragement  in  the  atti- 
tude which  he  believed  he  ought  to  take,  he  would 
have  found  it  in  that  of  the  exalted  dignitaries  of 
the  Church.  Mgr.  AfTre  was  not  alone  in  praising 
the  people  of  Paris  for  the  moderation  they  had 
shown  in  the  day  of  victory.  A  great  number  of  his 
episcopal  colleagues  seemed,  in  their  "  Charges," 
if  not  to  rejoice  at,  at  least  to  console  themselves 
easily  for,  the  fall  of  a  Government  to  which  many  of 
them  owed  their  elevation.  The  Nuncio  expressed 
to  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  the  keen  and 
profound  pleasure  with  which  he  had  been  inspired 
by  the  respect  the  people  of  Paris  had  shown  for 
religion.  Finally,  the  Holy  Father  himself,  in  a 
letter  to  M.  de  Montalembert,  congratulated  him- 
self on  the  fact  that  in  this  great  change  no  injury 
had  been  done  to  religion  or  to  its  ministers,  and 
took  pleasure  in  the  thought  that  this  moderation 
was  due  in  part  to  the  eloquence  of  the  Catholic 
orators  "  who  had  made  its  name  beloved  by  that 
generous  people."  All  this  was  more  than  was 
needed  to  make  Lacordaire  throw  himself  into  the 
thick  of  the  fray  with  the  generous  impetuosity  of 
his  nature.  Accordingly,  he  neglected  nothing  in 
order  to  realise  the  hope  he  had  conceived  of  placing 
the  Catholics  at  the  head  of  the  Republican 
movement,  and  of  conferring  on  the  Church  the 
government  of  the  democracy. 

The  first  means  to  be  employed  was  the  influence 
of  the  Press.   With  this  thought  he  associated  him- 


i64  LACORDAIRE 

self  with  two  men,  one  of  whom  was  his  friend, 
and  the  other  a  man  who  by  his  scholarship  already 
held  a  considerable  position  in  the  Church — 
Ozanam  and  the  Abbe  Maret.  "We  are  demo- 
crats," the  Abbe  Maret  had  written  in  a  note 
which  served  as  a  preamble  to  their  understand- 
ing; "  that  is  to  say,  we  believe  that  the  era  of  the 
government  of  the  people  by  the  people  them- 
selves has  arrived.  Consequently,  the  extension 
of  political  rights  and  of  general  liberty  seems  to 
us  a  necessity  of  the  times  and  conformable  with 
the  needs  of  civilisation."  This  understanding 
resulted  in  the  opening  of  a  subscription  which, 
on  the  first  day,  brought  four  hundred  and  forty 
pounds  into  Lacordaire's  hands,  and  the  publica- 
tion of  a  journal,  the  "Ere  Nouvelle,"  the  first 
number  of  which  appeared  on  April  5th.  This 
number  began  with  a  long  prospectus,  on  which, 
besides  the  signatures  of  the  Abbe  Maret  and 
Ozanam,  were  those  of  MM.  de  Coux  and  de 
Sainte-Foi,  both  former  contributors  to  the 
"Avenir."  If  those  of  Lamennais,  who  had  be- 
come a  complete  demagogue,  and  of  Montalem- 
bert,  who  was  now  a  thorough  reactionary, 
had  not  been  absent,  one  might  have  thought 
that  the  same  campaign  was  beginning  over 
again.  Lacordaire  had  accepted  the  position  of 
editor  of  the  journal,  but  he  only  wrote  in  it 
rarely.  Whatever  journalistic  talent  he  had 
formerly  shown  in  the  controversies  of  the 
"Avenir,"  another  method  of  action  was  still 
better  suited  to  his  temperament,  viz.  oratory. 
He  had  hitherto  spoken  before  silent  audiences. 
Doubtless,  even  in  the  pulpit,  he  had  more  than 
once  felt  between  his  hearers  and  himself  those 
communications,  in  some  way  or  other  magnetic, 
that  reveal  to  the  true  orator  the  state  of  mind 
of  those  who  listen  to  him,   and  that  encourage 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE    165 

or  warn  him.  But  to  speak  before  an  alert  and 
animated  audience  which,  expressing  its  impres- 
sions by  external  manifestations,  can  freely  ap- 
plaud or  interrupt,  which  follows  you  or  resists 
you — what  a  dream  for  a  man  whose  greatest 
talent  is  the  gift  of  speech,  and  who,  like  Lacor- 
daire,  is  an  orator  even  when  he  writes  !  It  is  not 
surprising  that  this  dream  tempted  him. 

Yet  it  would  be  calumniating  that  noble  nature 
to  believe  that  he  obeyed  a  merely  personal  feel- 
ing in  presenting  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the 
National  Assembly.  He  felt  that,  in  times  of 
trouble  and  liberty,  all  influence  that  one  en- 
deavours to  exercise  outside  of  assemblies  is  of 
no  avail,  at  any  rate  unless  it  is  a  revolutionary  in- 
fluence. He  therefore  accepted,  if  he  did  not 
solicit,  candidature  for  the  National  Assembly 
on  the  lists  of  several  Departments.  Appear  ng 
in  particular  on  the  Paris  list,  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  go  and  defend  his  candidature  at  public 
meetings.  He  went  to  these,  not  without  repug- 
nance, but  as  a  point  of  honour,  in  order  to  give 
an  example  of  courage.  "  Above  all,"  he  said, 
"we  must  fight  fear." 

Election  meetings  had  not  then  entered  into  our 
life  as  they  have  to-day,  and  the  presence  of  a  monk 
must  have  still  further  added  to  the  general  curi- 
osity. Accordingly,  there  was  a  great  concourse 
at  the  two  meetings  which  he  attended.  The 
newspapers  have  preserved  for  us  an  account  of 
that  which  was  held  in  the  Sorbonne.  All  the 
time  that  he  was  there,  Lacordaire  occupied  the 
position  of  an  accused  man  at  the  bar.  Citizen 
Guillemin  asked  him  what  was  his  opinion  in  re- 
gard to  the  direct  and,  in  particular,  the  indirect 
jurisdiction  of  the  Pope  in  temporal  matters. 
Lacordaire  replied  that  in  his  opinion  the  Sove- 
reign Pontiff  had  not  the  right  of  deposing  any 


166  LACORDAIRE 

sovereigns  or  chief  magistrates  whatsoever,  nor 
that  of  giving  a  constitution  to  France,  nor 
of  ruling  in  what  his  questioner  called  tem- 
poral affairs.  Citizen  Barnabe  asked  him  what  he 
thought  of  Montalembert's  last  speech  on  the 
events  of  the  Sonderbund,  "a  speech  which  was 
one  long,  envenomed  satire  against  our  fathers  of 
I793«"  "I  recognise  no  father  of  1793,"  replied 
Lacordaire  courageously.  "I  know  that  in  1789 
there  were  men  who  wanted  to  destroy  a  great 
many  abuses,  men  who  fought  for  that  destruc- 
tion. Those  men,  resolute  in  their  wills  and  in 
their  struggles,  those  are  they  whom  I  call  my 
fathers." 

Finally,  Citizen  Clemencey  directly  challenged 
him  on  the  passage  in  his  letter  on  the  Holy  See 
in  which  he  called  the  republican  party  "a  fac- 
tion of  which  one  is  not  right  in  speaking 
ill,  because  it  has  opportunities  for  cutting  off  your 
head  in  the  interval  between  two  monarchies." 
The  attack  was  embarrassing,  but  Lacordaire  ex- 
tricated himself  cleverly.  He  admitted  that  before 
the  24th  of  February  there  was  not  an  atom 
of  republicanism  in  his  whole  person,  but  he 
pleaded  as  "a  valid  excuse"  that  at  the  period 
when  he  entered  life  "  the  liberal  spirit  was  at  its 
height,  and  had  approved  of  the  charter  and  the 
constitution."  He  could  not  therefore  have  alone 
opposed  the  magnanimous  wish  of  the  nation.  If 
he  had  spoken  in  a  hard  manner  of  the  Republic, 
it  was  because  it  had  always  presented  itself  to  his 
mind  as  a  dark  and  blood-stained  scaffold.  But 
to-day  he  was  proud  and  satisfied  that  though  he 
had  thought  ill  of  it,  yet  he  had  not  seen  his 
gloomy  forecasts  realised.  And  when  Citizen 
Clemencey,  dissatisfied  with  this  answer,  asked 
Lacordaire  what  the  Church,  which  was  in  a  false 
position  towards  the  Republic,  intended  to  do  in 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE     167 

order  to  reconcile  herself  definitely  with  the  age, 
and  in  what  manner  she  meant  to  rejuvenate  her- 
self so  as  to  become  the  creed  of  the  young 
Republic,  he  gave  Lacordaire  an  opportunity  for 
a  fine  burst  of  eloquence  on  the  reconciliation  of 
the  new  generation  with  that  antique  generation 
of  truth  which  is  called  the  Church.  "  I  do  not 
easily  comprehend,"  he  exclaimed,  "  what  opposi- 
tion there  can  be  between  two  things  so  admirable 
as  the  liberty  of  the  people  and  the  old  Catholic 
doctrine  which  created  the  people,  for  before  Jesus 
Christ,  before  the  Gospel,  there  was  no  people, 
there  were  only  masters  and  slaves.  .  .  .  Equality! 
Liberty  !  How  can  the  Republic  which  inscribes 
that  device  on  the  portals  of  its  temples  be  in 
opposition  with  the  Church  ?  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  reconciliation  still  remains  to  be  made ;  I  believe 
on  the  contrary,  that  it  is  made,  and  if  that  people 
which  we  ourselves  have  placed  in  the  world 
would  abandon  its  ancient  prejudices,  if  they 
and  we,  I  say,  wish  to  be  reconciled,  I  do  not 
see  who  can  prevent  us." 

This  eloquent  peroration  was  covered  with 
applause,  and  Lacordaire  left  the  meeting  with- 
out, on  the  whole,  having  torn  his  monk's  robe. 
He  seems,  however,  to  have  entertained  some 
scruples  on  the  eve  of  the  election,  for  he  wrote  a 
signed  article  in  the  "  Ere  Nouvelle  "  in  which  he 
declared  that  the  political  ?'6le  of  the  clergy  seemed 
to  him  only  a  transitory  accident.  The  people  of 
Paris  had,  in  his  view,  consecrated  the  priest. 
The  priest  was  therefore  a  Frenchman,  a  citizen, 
a  republican  ;  he  could  come  forward  as  a  candi- 
date, and  he  ought  to  do  so,  for  to  retire  at  such 
a  moment  was  to  give  up  military  service  in  the 
hour  of  battle.  But  once  the  Republic  was  con- 
stituted, the  priest  would  again  find  himself  in  the 
presence  of  a  nation  extremely  jealous  of  the  dis- 


168  LACORDAIRE 

tinction  between  the  two  powers,  and  endowed 
with  an  exquisite  taste  that  is  keenly  wounded  by 
the  least  discord.  "The  clergy  of  France,"  he 
added,  "  will  never  without  damage  expose  them- 
selves to  the  influence  of  political  passions.  How- 
ever eloquent  they  may  be,  however  devoted,  they 
will  appear  less  great  in  the  tribune  than  in  the 
humble  pulpit  where  the  country  parish  priest 
brings  forward  the  glory  of  his  age  and  the 
simplicity  of  his  virtue." 

Closely  allied  as  Lacordaire  was  with  them,  the 
Republicans  opposed  him  vehemently  at  Paris. 
Even  a  section  of  the  clergy  declared  against 
him,  and  whilst  the  Abbe  de  Guerry,  the  parish 
priest  of  Saint-Eustache,  was  elected,  Lacordaire 
only  obtained  a  quite  insufficient  number  of  votes. 
It  was  the  same  in  the  other  Departments  where 
he  was  a  candidate.  He  had  therefore  grounds 
for  believing  that  he  had  failed  in  his  legitimate 
ambition,  when  he  learned  that,  having  been  placed 
at  the  last  moment  and  without  his  knowledge 
on  the  list  for  Bouches-du-Rhone,  he  was  one 
of  those  elected.  Three  bishops  and  twenty 
priests   were  elected  along   with  him. 

This  unexpected  result  could  only  encourage 
Lacordaire  in  the  hope  he  had  conceived  of  wit- 
nessing the  foundation  of  a  truly  Catholic  re- 
public. His  letters  at  the  time  show  his  exaltation. 
"Everything  we  see  is  a  miracle,"  he  wrote  to 
Madame  de  Prailly  ;  and  in  a  letter  to  M.  Foisset 
he  said,  "lam  not  Saint  Bernard;  and  Saint 
Bernard,  a  man  of  penitence  and  solitude,  never 
resisted  the  call  that  kings  or  peoples  made  to 
him."  There  was  one  last  occasion  on  which  he 
could  still  compare  himself  with  Saint  Bernard 
acclaimed  by  the  people.  That  was  the  4th  of 
May,  the  date  of  the  opening  of  the  National 
Assembly.     On  that  day,  on  the  proposal  of  one 


*  I     >.-•     • 


Lacordaire 

From  a  lithograph  by  Llanta,  1848 


Tojace  p.  168 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE    169 

of  its  members,  the  National  Assembly  decided 
to  proceed  to  the  peristyle  of  the  Legislative  Palace 
and  to  proclaim  the  Republic  there.  Lacor- 
daire's  white  and  black  costume  marked  him  out 
among  his  colleagues.  He  was  recognised  and 
cheered  by  name,  and  he  walked  down  as  far  as 
the  railings.  Hands  were  stretched  through  the 
bars  to  grasp  his,  and  as  the  Assembly  went 
round  the  Palace  to  return  by  another  door, 
Lacordaire  was  followed  during  this  procession 
by  an  applauding  crowd.  For  a  last  time  he  could 
believe  that  the  people  consecrated  him  as  priest, 
as  citizen,  and  as  republican.  But  his  illusions  as 
to  the  people's  real  feelings  were  destined  to  be  of 
short  duration. 

"Persons  of  importance"  had  advised  Lacor- 
daire to  take  his  seat  at  the  Assembly  either  in  a 
short  cassock  or  dressed  as  a  Frenchman.  At 
the  last  moment  he  refused,  and  it  was  in  his 
Dominican  habit  that  he  took  his  seat  on  the 
highest  bench  of  the  recess  to  the  extreme  left,  at 
the  top  of  what  was  called  the  M  Mountain."  He 
believed  that  by  this  he  gave  a  pledge  of  his 
adhesion.  "  It  was  an  error,"  he  has  himself 
written,  an  error  of  which  he  ought  to  have  been 
warned  when  he  saw  Lamennais  take  his  seat  on 
the  same  benches  some  rows  beneath  him.  What 
glances,  what  words,  were  exchanged  between 
them,  no  one  knows.  It  has  been  related  that, 
Lamennais  having  said  in  his  first  speech, 
"  When  I  was  a  priest,"  an  interrupter  answered, 
"Sir,  one  is  always  a  priest,"  and  that  the  inter- 
rupter was  Lacordaire.  But  none  of  his  serious 
biographers  mentions  the  affair,  and  it  is  a  mere 
legend. 

Lacordaire  only  spoke  twice  from  the  tribune. 
On  the  first  occasion  it  was  to  resist  the  direct 
nomination   of  Ministers   by  the   Assembly ;  on 


170  LACORDAIRE 

the  second,  in  reference  to  an  allusion  made  by 
Portalis,  the  Attorney-General,  to  the  costume  he 
wore,  "  a  costume  prohibited  by  the  law."  Lacor- 
daire  took  up  this  unseemly  remark  with  dignity, 
and  explained  that  what  his  habit  represented 
at  the  Assembly  was  "the  Republic  itself, 
triumphant,  generous,  just,  consistent  with  her- 
self." On  both  occasions  his  oratory  produced 
little  effect.  Would  he  have  been  able  to  trans- 
form it  by  condensing  it  and  giving  it  the  sober, 
vivid,  and  sometimes  sharpened  form  that  political 
eloquence  ought  to  take  ?  It  is  impossible  to  say. 
Events  left  him  no  time  for  this. 

On  May  15th  the  National  Assembly  was  in- 
vaded by  those  very  people  of  Paris  who,  eleven 
days  before,  were  acclaiming  the  Republic  and 
Lacordaire.  Let  us  allow  Lacordaire  himself  to 
relate  the  impression  this  made  upon  him.  "  We 
remained  for  three  hours  defenceless  against  the 
opprobrium  of  a  spectacle  in  which  blood  was  not 
shed,  in  which  perhaps  the  danger  was  not  very 
great,  but  in  which  honour  had  all  the  more  to 
suffer.  The  people,  if  it  was  the  people,  had 
insulted  its  representatives  without  any  other  end 
than  to  make  them  understand  that  they  were  at 
its  mercy.  It  had  not  covered  the  Assembly  with 
a  red  cap,  as  the  consecrated  head  of  Louis  XVI 
had  been  covered  ;  but  it  had  taken  away  its  crown 
from  it,  and  it  had  taken  its  own  dignity  from 
itself,  whether  it  was  the  people  or  whether  it  was 
not.  During  those  long  hours  I  had  only  one 
thought,  which  continually  recurred  under  this 
monotonous  and  implacable  formula — the  '  Re- 
public is  lost.' " 

For  Lacordaire  himself,  the  danger  was  at  one 
moment  greater  than  he  ever  knew.  "  Do  you 
see  that  vulture  there?"  said  a  man  of  the  people 
to  one  of  his  comrades  ;  "  I  should  like  very  much 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE    171 

to  go  and  twist  his  neck."  "The  comparison 
seemed  to  me  admirable,"  adds  Tocqueville,  who 
relates  the  anecdote  in  his  "Reminiscences." 
"The  long  and  bony  neck  of  the  Father  coming 
out  of  his  white  cowl,  his  bald  head  surrounded 
by  only  a  circle  of  hair,  his  narrow  face,  his 
hooked  nose,  his  fixed  and  brilliant  eyes  set 
closely  together,  gave  him,  in  truth,  a  resemblance, 
that  impressed  me,  to  the  bird  of  prey  which  the 
man  mentioned." 

The  blow  was  a  rough  one,  and  the  disillusion 
was  as  complete  as  it  was  rapid.  With  a  single 
glance  he  measured  the  depth  of  the  error  into 
which  he  had  fallen.  He  understood  that  the 
people,  whom  he  had  dreamed  of  reconciling  with 
the  Church,  were  not  disposed  to  allow  themselves 
to  be  governed  by  her  ;  he  understood  that  if,  in 
part  thanks  to  his  own  efforts,  the  number  of 
Catholics  was  much  greater  in  France  than  it  had 
been  immediately  after  1830,  yet  it  was  an  idle 
fancy  to  count  on  a  purely  Catholic  majority ; 
lastly,  he  understood  that  his  generous  dreams 
of  social  fraternity  were  threatened  by  passions 
against  which  it  would  be  impossible  not  to 
oppose  force,  that  an  era  of  violent  struggles  was 
going  to  begin,  and  that  the  cruel  necessities  of 
those  struggles  would  put  the  representative  of  a 
God  of  mercy  to  too  rough  a  trial.  As  he  had 
recognised  and  proclaimed  his  error  of  1830,  with 
the  same  frankness,  with  the  same  honesty,  he 
recognised  and  proclaimed  his  error  of  1848. 
Three  days  after  the  events  of  May  15th,  he  sent 
letters  in  which  he  announced  his  resignation 
both  to  the  President  of  the  National  Assembly 
and  to  the  electors  of  Bouches-du-Rhone.  Ex- 
perience had  shown  him,  he  said  in  his  letter  to 
the  President,  "that  he  would  be  unable  in  his 
person  to  reconcile  the  pacific  duties  of  the  re- 


172  LACORDAIRE 

ligious  life  with  the  difficult  and  severe  duties  of 
a  representative  of  the  people."  And  he  added  in 
his  letter  to  the  electors  :  M  I  understood  that  in  a 
political  assembly  impartiality  led  to  powerless- 
ness  and  isolation,  that  it  was  necessary  to  choose 
one's  camp  and  throw  oneself  into  it  without  any 
reserve.  I  could  not  decide  to  do  this.  My  re- 
tirement was  thenceforward  inevitable,  and  I  have 
effected  it." 

At  a  distance  of  time,  the  confession  of  an  error 
makes  a  man  greater.  At  the  time  itself,  it  lessens 
him.  Lacordaire  had  the  feeling  of  this  lessen- 
ing. He  came  to  his  decision  not  without  pain, 
but  with  touching  humility.  "It  is  very  hard," 
he  wrote,  "  to  seem  to  lack  consistency  and  energy, 
but  it  is  far  harder  still  to  resist  the  instincts  of 
one's  conscience.  I  would  never  have  believed 
that  I  could  have  so  much  horror  of  political  life. 
I  have  found  myself  to  be  a  little  monk,  and  not 
at  all  a  Richelieu,  a  little  monk  loving  retirement 
and  peace." 

The  days  of  June  finished  the  overthrow  of  his 
political  faith,  which  he  himself  admitted  "  had 
never  been  likely  to  live."  Accordingly,  some 
months  afterwards  he  came  to  a  determination 
which  was  the  natural  consequence  of  his  new 
state  of  mind:  that  of  giving  up  the  "lire 
Nouvelle,"  the  programme  of  which,  growing 
more  and  more  audacious,  had  ceased  to  be  his.  He 
came  to  an  understanding  on  the  matter  with  the 
Abbe  Maret  in  a  very  noble  letter  which  the  Abbe 
Bazin  has  published  in  his  very  interesting  life  of 
the  late  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Theology.  "  It 
was  my  duty,"  he  said,  "to  foresee  whether  I  was 
not  going  beyond  my  strength  in  taking  up  a 
course  hitherto  foreign  to  my  habits  of  mind.  It 
was  my  duty  to  recognise,  to  know,  that  I  was 
very  much  of  a  novice  as  a  democrat,  and  that  I 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE    173 

would  be  incapable,  without  an  energetic  convic- 
tion, of  bringing  to  an  end  the  work  I  was  begin- 
ning with  you.  I  confess  this.  God  will  judge 
it.  He  will  judge  if  the  need  of  devoting  myself 
to  His  cause  can  excuse  the  temerity  there  was 
in  engaging  myself  in  a  course  of  which  I  was 
not  sure." 

His  democratic  convictions,  which  had  never 
been  very  solid,  were  in  truth  singularly  shaken, 
for  some  months  afterwards  he  wrote  to  a  friend  : 
"  Doubtless  it  is  the  Gospel  that  has  founded 
liberty  in  the  world,  that  has  declared  men  equal 
before  God,  that  has  preached  the  ideas  and  the 
deeds  of  fraternity  ;  and,  if  you  wish,  you  can  call 
this  democracy.  But  that  word,  according  to  its  ety- 
mology, rather  expresses  the  meaning  of  govern- 
ment by  the  people.  Now  I  do  not  clearly  see 
that  there  is  necessarily  more  liberty,  equality,  or 
fraternity  in  a  democracy  taken  in  that  sense  than 
under  a  monarchy.  That  may  or  may  not  be  the 
case.  It  is  a  question,  and  for  my  own  part,  I 
believe  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  an  open  question." 

As  the  question  seemed  to  him  an  open  one,  he 
willingly  remained  aloof  from  the  eager  struggles 
of  parties  that  marked  the  whole  duration  of  the 
National  Assembly  and  the  Legislative  Assembly. 
He  did  not  wish  to  join  himself  with  the  action  of 
those  of  his  friends  who  already  looked  to  the  re- 
conciliation of  the  two  branches  of  the  House  of 
Bourbon — to  what  was  then  called  the  fusion — for 
a  remedy  for  the  dangers  which  everybody  fore- 
saw. The  Catholics  in  a  first  moment  of  enthu- 
siasm had  accepted  the  Republic.  He  regarded 
them  as  pledged  ;  in  his  eyes  a  recantation  would 
have  dishonoured  them  and  would  have  allowed 
them  to  be  no  longer  regarded  as  anything  more 
than  "the  humble  flunkeys  of  any  events  that 
fortune  favoured." 


i74  LACORDAIRE 

Neither  did  he  approve  of  the  alliance  con- 
tracted between  the  Catholics,  represented  by 
M.  de  Falloux  and  M.  de  Montalembert,  and  the 
Liberals,  represented  by  M.  Cousin  and  M. 
Thiers.  It  seemed  to  him  to  be  inspired  by  re- 
actionary and  middle-class  feeling.  "  The  separa- 
tion," he  wrote,  referring  to  some  of  his  most 
intimate  friends,  "is  complete  and  irremediable. 
...  It  was  a  question  of  knowing  if  to  the  fear  of 
revolutions  we  should  sacrifice  oppressed  nationali- 
ties, civil  and  religious  liberties,  the  interests  of 
the  poor  ;  if  Europe  should  fall  back  into  the  arms 
of  Austria  and  Russia,  to  secure  anew  in  that 
Holy  Alliance  the  restored  reign  of  a  selfish, 
rationalist,  and  Voltairian  middle-class  ;  if,  in  a 
word,  we  should  choose  M.  Thiers  instead  of 
Providence."  Thus  he  took  no  part  in  the 
campaign,  which  resulted  in  the  law  of  1850 
on  liberty  of  teaching,  and  it  was  not  many 
years  before,  that,  in  doing  justice  to  that 
law,  he  called  it  by  the  happy  name  of  "the 
nineteenth-century  Edict  of  Nantes."  But  in  the 
voluntary  isolation  to  which  he  restricted  himself, 
he  had  no  illusion  in  regard  to  the  final  issue. 
"The  branches  of  absolutism,"  he  wrote,  "will 
shoot  forth  as  the  sole  counterpoise  to  the  furies  of 
demagogy  ;  the  middle-class  will  applaud  through 
fear,  the  clergy  through  hope,  and  the  cannon  of 
the  Invalides  will  be  fired  to  proclaim  an  era 
of  order,  of  peace,  and  of  religion."  And  in 
another  letter  :  "  I  see  all  over  Europe  a  hurrying 
towards  despotism  which  forebodes  frightful  revo- 
lutions for  the  rest  of  my  days,  and  as  I  shall  not 
deviate  one  line  from  the  course  on  which  my 
mind  has  entered,  I  may  expect  persecution  which 
will  be  all  the  sharper,  as  I  shall  be  alone  in  my 
sentiments.  Europe  will  pass  into  despotism  ; 
she  will  not  remain  in  it,  and  even  should  she 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE     175 

remain  in  it,  I  shall  live  and  die  protesting  for 
the  civilisation  of  the  Gospel  against  the  civilisa- 
tion of  the  sabre  and  the  knout." 

Such  was  his  disposition  of  mind  in  the  last 
months  of  the  year  185 1  ;  and  if  he  lacked  clear- 
ness of  view  on  the  morrow  of  1848,  he  had 
certainly  profited  by  experience,  for  it  was  im- 
possible to  throw  a  more  prophetic  glance  on  the 
future  of  France  and  of  Europe.  On  March  9th, 
185 1,  he  had  begun  a  Lenten  course  of  sermons 
at  Notre-Dame  before  a  congregation  more  eager 
than  ever  to  listen  to  his  oratory.  Nothing  could 
have  led  to  the  anticipation  that  this  course  was 
to  be  the  last  he  would  preach,  and  yet  in  the 
closing  sermon  he  could  not  prevent  himself  from 
speaking  to  his  hearers  as  if  he  were  addressing 
them  his  farewell.  "I  have  reached,"  he  said  to 
them,  "that  middle  stage  in  life's  journey  in 
which  man  strips  off  his  youth  and  descends 
along  a  rapid  incline  to  helplessness  and  oblivion. 
I  ask  no  better,  since  this  is  the  fate  which  a  just 
Providence  assigns  to  us  ;  but,  at  least,  at  this 
parting  of  the  ways,  whence  I  can  yet  once  more 
behold  the  times  that  are  almost  ended,  you  will 
not  envy  me  the  pleasure  of  throwing  one  glance 
backward,  of  calling  to  mind  with  you,  who  were 
my  companions  on  the  road,  some  of  the  memories 
which  make  this  cathedral  and  yourselves  so  dear 
to  me."  He  then  addressed  a  magnificent  invoca- 
tion to  those  vaults  of  Notre-Dame,  under  whose 
shadow  the  greatest  events  of  his  life  had  taken 
place.  It  was  there,  when  his  soul  had  opened 
again  to  the  light,  that  pardon  had  descended  on 
his  faults,  and  that  he  had  received  God  for  the 
second  time.  It  was  there  that,  after  long  wander- 
ings, he  had  found  the  secret  of  his  predestination 
in  that  pulpit,  which  for  fifteen  years  had  been 
surrounded  by  respect  and   by  honour.     It  was 


176  LACORDAIRE 

there  that,  on  his  return  from  voluntary  exile,  he 
had  brought  back  the  religious  habit,  and  obtained 
for  it  the  triumph  of  unanimous  respect.  It  was 
there,  lastly,  that  all  the  affections  which  consoled 
his  life  had  been  born,  and  that,  as  a  lonely  man, 
unknown  to  the  great,  removed  from  parties, 
aloof  from  the  places  where  crowds  assemble  and 
connections  are  formed,  he  had  met  the  souls  that 
had  loved  him.  And  in  a  last  outburst,  he  ex- 
claimed: "And  you,  gentlemen,  already  a  numerous 
generation,  in  whom  I  have  perhaps  sown  the 
seeds  of  some  truths  and  some  virtues,  I  shall 
remain  united  with  you  in  the  future  as  I  have 
been  in  the  past ;  but  if  the  day  comes  when  my 
strength  proves  too  weak  for  my  will,  if  you 
should  come  to  despise  what  will  then  be  left  of  a 
voice  that  once  was  dear  to  you,  know  that  you  will 
never  be  ungrateful,  for  nothing  henceforth  can 
prevent  you  from  having  been  the  glory  of  my 
life,  and  the  crown  of  my  eternity."  And  then, 
leaving  his  hearers  under  the  emotion  of  these 
unexpected  words,  he  slowly  descended  the  steps 
of  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame  which  he  was  never 
to  mount  again. 

Nine  months  afterwards  came  the  coup  d'etat  of 
December  2nd.  The  event  was  so  much  antici- 
pated that  it  does  not  appear  (so  far,  it  is  true,  as 
one  can  judge  by  letters  transmitted  through  the 
post)  to  have  caused  Lacordaire  any  very  keen 
emotion.  However,  he  at  once  perceived  the 
dangers  of  a  military  intervention  in  the  legal  life 
of  a  country.  Nor  did  he  share  the  illusions  of 
those  of  his  friends  who  believed  that  the  Socialists 
alone  would  have  to  smart  for  the  coup  detat,  and 
that  Catholics  and  Liberals  would  not  have  to 
suffer  through  it.  "  The  violation  of  the  con- 
stitution of  a  country  by  military  force,"  he  wrote, 
"  is  always  a  great  public  calamity  which  prepares 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE    177 

new  blows  of  fortune  for  the  future,  as  well  as  the 
progressive  degradation  of  the  social  order. 
Nothing  counterbalances  the  violation  of  the  moral 
order  on  a  great  scale.  Even  success  forms  part  of 
the  evil  ;  it  gives  birth  to  imitators  who  are  no 
longer  discouraged.  Political  scepticism  seizes 
on  souls,  and  they  are  always  ready  to  deliver  up 
the  world  to  the  first  comer  who  promises  them 
gold  and  tranquillity." 

What  then  was  the  attitude  which  Lacordaire 
desired  to  see  the  Church  taking  towards  this  new 
Government,  the  third  whose  accession  he  had 
witnessed  ?  There  could  no  longer  be  any  ques- 
tion of  the  absolute  separation  of  which  he  had 
dreamed  in  1830,  or  of  the  freely  accepted  domina- 
tion of  which  he  had  thought  in  1848.  What  he 
would  have  liked  was  that,  while  recognising  the 
Government  which  had  incontestably  been  ac- 
claimed by  a  majority  of  the  country,  while  cor- 
rectly discharging  the  duties  that  the  Concordat 
imposed  on  them,  the  French  clergy  should  not 
make  the  cause  of  that  Government  their  own,  and 
that  they  should  adopt  towards  it  an  attitude  of 
respectful  independence,  so  that  the  Church  would 
neither  be  compromised  by  its  faults  nor  shaken 
by  its  fall.  He  would  have  liked,  above  all,  that 
nothing  should  be  done  which  savoured  of  ser- 
vility or  recantation,  and  that  the  Church  should 
not  seem  to  take  sides  against  the  conquered. 
One  can  judge  of  the  attitude  he  would  have  liked 
to  see  taken  from  that  which  he  prescribed  for  his 
own  Order.  In  regard  to  an  official  ceremony 
which  had  been  fixed  to  take  place  a  short  time 
after  the  coup  d'etat,  this  is  what  he  wrote  to  the 
Superior  of  one  of  the  houses  he  had  founded  : 
"  In  such  circumstances  as  these  we  ought  to  do 
what  is  strictly  necessary  and  nothing  more  :  what 
is  necessary,  because  neutrality  is  our  principle  in 


178  LACORDAIRE 

politics  ;  nothing  more,  because  the  dignity  of  all 
honest  convictions  and  respect  for  them  are  another 
principle  which  guides  us  and  ought  always  to 
guide  us." 

For  some  months  he  could  hope  that  this  atti- 
tude would  be  that  of  the  French  episcopate. 
Doubtless,  in  a  religious  journal  which  thencefor- 
ward began  to  exercise  a  considerable  influence, 
an  eloquent  voice  had  addressed  a  pressing  appeal 
to  Catholics,  asking  them  to  give  the  co-operation 
of  their  votes  to  the  Prince-President  in  the  plebis- 
cite of  December  20th.  But  that  was  merely 
political  advice  given  by  a  layman  to  laymen. 
The  bishops  kept  themselves  in  strict  reserve. 
Only  five  of  them  had  pronounced  in  this  same 
sense,  though  with  great  moderation.  It  was  not 
the  same  when  seven  millions  of  votes  had  shown 
the  strength  of  the  new  power  and  given  a  pre- 
sentiment of  its  continuance.  The  episcopate  no 
longer  held  back.  A  journey  which  the  Prince- 
President  made  to  the  south  of  France  provided 
them  with  an  opportunity  for  making  public  their 
feelings.  The  exercise  of  their  functions  obliged 
the  bishops  to  present  their  clergy  to  the  Presi- 
dent in  the  towns  at  which  he  stopped.  This  gave 
a  great  many  of  them  an  opportunity  for  address- 
ing speeches  to  him,  whose  tone  recalled  those  of 
the  bishops  of  the  First  Empire.  Others,  who  had 
no  opportunity  of  approaching  the  new  Caesar, 
consoled  themselves  by  the  fervency  of  their 
Charges.  Among  the  bishops  who  distinguished 
themselves  in  this  rivalry,  one  could  have  found 
some  of  those  who  had  acknowledged  the  Republic 
with  most  alacrity.  Thus  the  bishop  of  Amiens, 
Mgr.  de  Salinis,  had  written  in  1848:  "  The 
people  has  had  the  Divine  understanding  of  the 
natural  alliance  between  Catholicism  and  liberty." 
But  in  a  pastoral  letter  addressed  to  his  diocese  on 


THE  REPUBLIC  AND  THE  EMPIRE    179 

the  occasion  of  the  restoration  of  the  Empire,  he 
developed  the  theory  that  when  the  Church  en 
counters  Cassar  her  duty  is  to  go  to  him  and  offer 
him  not  only  peace  but  an  alliance.  "  We  are 
therefore  resolved,"  wrote  Mgr.  de  Salinis,  "to 
give  the  Emperor  our  most  loyal  co-operation, 
and  we  engage  ourselves  to  aid  him  in  accomplish- 
ing the  providential  mission  with  which  he  has 
been  entrusted." 

As  a  simple  monk,  Lacordaire  had  merely  to 
keep  silence,  but  on  the  morrow  of  the  coup  d'etat 
an  important  question  presented  itself  to  him — that 
of  the  resumption  of  his  sermons  at  Notre-Dame. 
Mgr.  Sibour  pressed  him  to  resume  them.  He 
refused.  "I  understood,"  he  wrote  later,  "that 
in  my  thought,  in  my  language,  in  my  past,  I 
myself  was  also  a  liberty,  and  that  it  was  my  part 
to  disappear  like  other  liberties."  Moreover,  he 
only  deferred  to  the  wishes  of  his  direct  superior, 
Father  Jeaudel,  and  in  a  letter  to  Madame  de 
Prailly,  after  indicating  this  reason  for  his  refusal, 
he  added  :  "I  thought  that  I  could  not  preach  my 
sermons  this  winter,  amidst  the  silence  of  the 
Press  and  of  public  opinion,  without  exposing  the 
pulpit  of  Notre-Dame  to  the  risk  of  becoming 
a  dangerous  meeting-place  for  the  friends  and  the 
enemies  of  the  new  power.  The  oppression  of  the 
time  would  have  been  an  increasing  inducement 
for  me  to  make  some  attacks  upon  despotism,  and 
these  would  have  been  made  out  to  be  greater  than 
I  intended  them.  I  have  preferred  to  be  silent  ;  I 
have  found  that  silence  is  prudent  and  dignified, 
and  in  its  own  way  is  a  form  of  mourning  for 
our  vanished  liberties." 

It  was  the  misfortune  of  the  Empire,  and  it 
suffered  the  penalty  for  this  until  its  end,  that 
it  had  thus  closed  the  mouths  of  the  men  who  had 
most   generosity  of  character  and   independence 


i8o  LACORDAIRE 

of  spirit.  When,  later,  the  forces  of  repression 
were  worn  out,  and  it  wished  to  give  play  to  those 
of  liberty,  it  did  not  find  among  those  who  were 
devoted  to  it  anyone  who  was  able  to  set  these  in 
motion.  Lacordaire  was,  however,  to  make  him- 
self heard  once  more  in  Paris,  in  1853.  This  was 
in  Saint  Roch,  in  that  very  church  in  which, 
twenty  years  before,  his  first  attempt  had  led  his 
friends  to  say  that  he  would  never  be  a  preacher. 
He  had  accepted  an  invitation  to  preach  a  sermon 
there  on  behalf  of  the  free  Christian  schools.  Did 
he  fear  that  his  silence  might  seem  to  be  ac- 
quiescence? Did  he  simply  wish,  at  a  time  of 
which  M.  Guizot  could  say  that  its  "  servility 
was  greater  than  its  servitude,"  to  give  an  example 
of  boldness?  However  that  may  be,  he  chose  as 
the  text  for  his  sermon  these  words  from  the 
Bible,  "  Esto  vir  " — "  Be  a  man,"  and  as  his  sub- 
ject, the  greatness  of  character.  He  put  the  question 
whether  greatness  of  character  is  a  virtue  and  a 
duty  for  the  Christian.  One  can  imagine  what  his 
answer  was.  "  Every  time,"  he  exclaimed,  uthat 
we  wish  to  have  great,  strong,  generous  impulses, 
then,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  we  turn  away  our 
heads  from  this  abject  soil  that  we  trample  beneath 
our  feet  and  we  raise  them  towards  heaven  to  seek 
sublime  inspiration  there  ;  we  ask  from  that 
Creator  of  Whom  our  conscience  is  the  glorious 
reflection,  not  for  what  will  succeed,  or  for  what 
will  assist  us  in  the  opinion  of  men  and  in  the 
favour  of  princes,  but  for  what  is  written  in 
the  soul,  because  what  is  written  in  the  soul  is 
written  in  God.  We  look  at  heaven  which  is  our 
country,  and  thence  we  derive  strength  to  despise 
all  events,  whatever  they  may  be — strength  to 
perform  in  the  face  of  God,  of  men,  and  of  our 
conscience,  acts  inspired  by  duty  and  for  the  good 
of  others." 


LAST  YEARS  181 


He  went  on  to  show  the  resistance  that  character 
has  always  been  able  to  oppose  to  force.  "  God 
took  a  man,"  he  said,  "  whom  He  invested  with 
a  formidable  power,  a  man  who  was  called  great, 
but  who  was  not  great  enough  not  to  abuse  his 
power.  He  plunged  him  into  a  contest,  for  a 
number  of  years,  with  the  old  man  of  the  Vatican, 
and  at  the  height  of  his  triumphs  it  was  the 
old  man  who  was  the  conqueror."  He  then 
showed  this  same  man  struggling  with  Spain, 
"  that  nation  made  by  monks,"  and  he  added: 
"  Spain  had  the  signal  honour  of  being  the  first 
cause  of  the  ruin  of  that  man  and  of  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  world."  It  was  before  an  immense 
congregation  which  filled  not  only  the  whole  nave 
but  also  the  side  chapels,  that,  in  a  vibrant  voice, 
with  outstretched  arm  and  menacing  forefinger, 
he  uttered  these  words.  "  There  passed,"  says  an 
eye-witness,  "a  tremor  through  the  crowd  like  that 
caused  by  the  wind  in  a  forest."  Lacordaire  saw 
the  impression  hiswords  produced.  "  I  know,"  he 
said,  interrupting  himself,  "that  it  does  not  need 
an  army  to  stop  me  from  speaking  here,  it  only 
needs  a  soldier  ;  but  in  order  to  defend  my  speech 
and  the  truth  that  is  in  it,  God  has  given  me 
something  that  is  able  to  withstand  all  the  empires 
in  the  world."  His  audacity  appeared  so  great 
that  some  of  his  hearers  asked  themselves  whether, 
on  the  morrow,  some  exceptional  measure  would 
not  be  put  in  force  against  him.  The  result 
showed  the  eternal  truth  of  M.  Guizot's  saying. 
The  sermon,  indeed,  received  no  publicity  ;  but 
the  "  Moniteur  Officiel "  had  the  good  taste  to 
praise  it,  and  Lacordaire  was  able  to  leave  Paris 
a  few  days  later. 

He  went  to  Toulouse.  The  interests  of  his 
Order  summoned  him  thither.  He  preached  there, 
in  1854,  h^  famous  sermons  "On  Life,"  of  which 


i82  LACORDAIRE 

I  have  already  spoken.  For  the  last  time  his 
words  sounded  forth  in  public,  in  the  old  church 
of  Saint-Etienne,  and  with  a  renown  the  echoes 
of  which  still  reached  me  after  an  interval  of  forty 
years.  More  modest  occupations  were  to  absorb 
the  last  years  of  his  life. 

The   management   of    the  old   Royal    Military 
School,   which  the  Benedictines  had   founded  at 
Soreze,  was  offered  him  by  the  new  administra- 
tion.    He  accepted,    not   without   some   sadness, 
measuring  the  sacrifice,  and  submitting  to  it  out 
of   a    spirit   of    humility  and    obedience   to    his 
superiors.     "  Viventi  hospitium,   morienti  sepul- 
chrum,  utrique  beneficium  " — "A  refuge  for  the 
living,  a  tomb  for  the  dying,  a  benefit  for  both," 
he  said,  speaking  of  the  place  where  in  truth  he 
was  going   to  bury  himself,   and  which   he  was 
hardly  ever  to   leave   again.     However,    he   had 
always  been  fond  of  young  people.     He  accord- 
ingly devoted  himself  with  the   passion   that   he 
brought  to  everything  to  the  education  of  a  new 
generation  of  Catholics.     There  was  in  the  heart 
of  this   monk   as   it  were  the  tardy  dawning  of 
a  last  feeling,  paternal  love.     Sometimes  he  went 
so  far  as  to  regret  that  he  had  not  adopted  a  child 
who  would  have  been  the  son  of  his  soul  and  to 
whom  he  would  have   made  the  gift  of  himself. 
"  But  I  have  feared  ingratitude,"  he  added,  "and 
that  fear  makes  me  still  hesitate  to-day.     I  would 
have  loved  him  so  much  that  if  he  had  slighted 
my  love  in  God  he  would  have  done  a  deep  hurt 
to  the  weakness  of  my  human  nature.     He  would 
have  killed  it."     If  he  had  no  adopted  son,  we  can, 
however,  say  that  all  the  pupils  of  Soreze  became 
his  children.     Up  to  his  death  they  absorbed  his 
whole  time  and  care.     He  prepared  the  addresses 
he  delivered  to  them  every  Sunday  with  as  much 
application   as    he  formerly   did   his  sermons   in 


LAST  YEARS  183 


Notre-Dame,  and  in  them  he  exhausted  all  that 
was  left  of  his  strength.  His  voice  failed  him 
in  one  of  the  last  instructions  which  he  gave.  ' '  My 
sword  has  rusted,  gentlemen,"  said  he,  interrupt- 
ing himself,  "but  I  can  say  that  it  is  at  your 
service."  Another  incident  will  show  the  solici- 
tude with  which  the  direction  of  those  young  souls 
inspired  him.  At  the  time  of  his  candidature  for 
the  French  Academy,  Lacordaire  had  to  spend 
some  days  in  Paris.  He  had  promised  that  he 
would  return  to  Soreze  on  a  certain  Saturday.  It 
was  desired  to  retain  him  that  day  for  an  important 
interview.  "  No,"  he  answered  ;  "that  is  the  day 
on  which  I  hear  confessions,  and  one  cannot  know 
what  trouble  a  delayed  confession  may  cause  in 
the  life  of  a  soul." 

His  educational  methods  would  be  equally  in- 
teresting to  study.  The  small  size  of  this  volume 
does  not  allow  me  to  speak  of  them  as  I  should 
have  desired.  I  should  have  liked  to  draw  a 
parallel  between  these  methods  and  those  of  our 
university  establishments,  and  also  with  those 
usually  followed  in  ecclesiastical  establishments. 
I  should  have  liked  to  show  how,  in  order  to 
maintain  discipline,  he  depended  less  on  super- 
vision than  on  confidence,  on  punishment  than 
on  honour,  and  how  he  occupied  himself  with 
forming  Catholics  who  would  also  be  men  and 
Frenchmen.  He  endeavoured  to  exalt  two  things 
in  his  pupils — character,  and  love  of  country  ; 
character,  which  he  called  "the  secret  and  con- 
stant energy  of  the  will,  a  something  which  is 
immovable  in  its  designs,  more  immovable  still 
in  its  fidelity  to  itself,  to  its  convictions,  to  its 
friendships,  to  its  virtues ;  an  inward  force  which 
springs  out  of  the  person  and  inspires  in  everyone 
that  certainty  which  we  call  security  "  ;  and  love  of 
country,  which,  in  one  of  his  "  Letters  to  a  Young 


i84  LACORDAIRE 

Man  on  the  Christian  Life,"  inspired  him  with 
this  fine  passage:  "Our  country  is  our  Church 
in  time  just  as  the  Church  is  our  country  in 
eternity.  ...  It  is  the  soil  that  has  seen  our 
birth,  the  blood  and  the  home  of  our  fathers,  the 
love  of  our  parents,  the  memories  of  our  child- 
hood, our  traditions,  our  laws,  our  customs,  our 
liberties,  our  history,  and  our  religion :  it  is 
everything  that  we  believe  and  everything  that 
we  love."  Thus  he  endeavoured  to  interest  these 
young  people  in  the  destinies  of  France.  If 
politics  were  naturally  banished  from  the  lessons 
at  Soreze,  he  did  not,  however,  teach  them  that 
they  should  belong  to  no  party,  or  that  they  should 
change  their  party  according  to  circumstances. 
He  did  not  say  to  them  :  "  Be  Catholics,  and  be 
nothing  else."  He  said  to  them,  on  the  contrary, 
in  a  familiar  discourse  :  "  Have  an  opinion.  Pro- 
vided it  is  not  an  exaggerated  one,  it  will  always 
be  honourable ;  but,  and  this  I  beg  of  you,  count  for 
something  ;  know  how  to  will  and  to  will  seriously. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  pride  but  of  dignity.  In 
our  age  hardly  anybody  knows  how  to  will.  Do 
you,  then,  the  first  of  the  young  people  whom  I 
lead  into  the  world  (he  was  addressing  some 
pupils  who  were  going  to  leave  Soreze),  although 
God  did  not  place  you  for  long  in  my  hands,  do 
you,  I  beg,  act  on  these  words,  Have  an  opinion. 
If  you  do,  you  will  be  great  citizens  ;  if  not,  you 
will  dishonour  your  country — perhaps  you  will 
sell  it." 

The  schoolmaster  had  condemned  the  preacher 
to  silence ;  he  left,  however,  some  leisure  to  the 
writer.  Lacordaire  profited  by  this  to  write  a 
"Life  of  Saint  Mary  Magdalene."  I  am  a  little 
embarrassed  about  speaking  of  this  "  Life."  It  is 
one  of  his  most  popular  works.  I  cannot  say  that 
it  is  one  of  those  which  please  me  most.     On  the 


Lacordaire 

From  the  bust  by  Bonnassieux 


To  face  p.  184 


1     c   c  c  c    c        «, 


LAST  YEARS  185 


morrow  of  its  publication,  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  said  : 
"  This  book  has  all  the  corruptions  of  the  time — 
its  unwholesome  sentimentality,  its  individualism, 
its  false  mysticism,  its  involuntary  rationalism." 
I  cannot  subscribe  to  this  severe  judgment  by  the 
author  of  the  "  Diaboliques  "  and  "Une  Vieille 
Maitresse,"  but  I  must  confess  that  in  some  pas- 
sages, and  perhaps  in  the  very  conception  of  the 
book,  a  certain  exquisite  measure  seems  to  me  to 
be  sometimes  a  little  exceeded.  However,  I  shall 
not  be  so  rigorous  as  to  wish  that  this  book  was 
never  written,  for  we  should  have  lost  the  delight- 
ful pages  on  friendship  that  open  the  volume, 
and,  here  and  there,  some  piercing  touches  that 
reach  the  heart.  For  instance,  the  meeting  of 
Christ  with  Mary  Magdalene  after  His  resurrec- 
tion :  "  'Jesus  said  unto  her,  Mary.  She  turneth 
herself,  and  saith  unto  him,  Rabboni  ;  which  is  to 
say,  Master.'  Mary!  Oh!  what  an  accent  that 
word  had  !  Alas  !  even  here  below  how  sweet  our 
name  is  in  the  mouth  of  a  friend,  and  how  far 
it  penetrates  into  the  painful  depths  of  our  being  ! 
And  if  it  was  God  Who  uttered  it  in  a  low  voice  ! 
If  it  was  God,  dead  for  us,  raised  from  the  dead 
for  us,  Who  called  us  by  our  name,  what  echo 
would  it  not  stir  in  the  infinite  depths  of  our 
wretchedness !  Mary  Magdalene  heard  every- 
thing in  her  name  ;  she  heard  the  mystery  of  the 
resurrection  which  she  did  not  understand  ;  she 
heard  in  it  the  love  of  her  Saviour,  and  in  that 
love  she  recognised  Him.  ■  Master,'  she  answered ; 
a  word  sufficed  for  her,  as  a  word  had  sufficed  for 
the  Son  of  God.  The  greater  the  love  of  souls 
for  one  another,  the  briefer  is  their  language." 

Lacordaire's  last  years  were  sad.  If,  in  truth, 
there  be  an  ordeal  which  is  cruel  to  a  generous 
and  sometimes  rather  visionary  spirit  such  as  his, 
it  is  to  see  events  giving  the  lie  to  anticipations 


186  LACORDAIRE 


and  hopes  that  have  long  been  cherished.  He 
had  dreamed  of  an  alliance  in  France  between  the 
Church  and  liberty  ;  he  saw  the  Church  seeking 
an  alliance  with  power.  He  had  preached  inde- 
pendence and  dignity  to  her  ;  he  saw  her  seeking 
to  purchase  favours  by  services.  He  had  under- 
taken to  mould  Catholics  for  the  exercise  of  liberty, 
to  teach  them  to  employ  the  weapons  of  com- 
mon right ;  he  saw  them  for  the  most  part 
loudly  denying  liberty,  insulting  those  who  re- 
mained faithful  to  it,  and  "  saluting  Caesar  with 
an  acclamation  that  would  have  excited  the  con- 
tempt of  a  Tiberius."  This  was  his  great  sorrow, 
and  the  fidelity  of  a  few  friends  could  not  succeed 
in  assuaging  it.  In  the  pages  which  he  dictated 
from  his  death-bed  he  recalled  the  memory  of  this 
trial  in  measured  terms.  "  Many  Catholics,  re- 
penting of  what  they  had  said  and  what  they  had 
done,  threw  themselves  eagerly  into  the  arms  of 
absolute  power.  This  schism,  which  I  do  not 
wish  here  to  call  an  apostasy,  has  always  been 
a  great  mystery  and  a  great  grief  to  me.  History 
will  tell  what  its  reward  was." 

The  danger  to  the  Church  of  lending  herself  to 
a  campaign  of  reaction  haunted  his  mind  to  such 
a  degree  that,  thirteen  years  before,  he  had  already 
written:  "The  'Ami  de  la  Religion'  and  the 
'  Univers '  will  bring  it  about  that,  in  the  next 
rising,  people  will  fall  upon  the  churches  and  the 
priests ;  I  do  not  want  to  have  my  share  in 
this  frightful  result."  His  correspondence  with 
Madame  Swetchine  is  full  of  eloquent  cries,  torn 
from  him  by  the  attitude  of  certain  Catholics. 
Sometimes  he  could  not  restrain  himself,  and 
he  directly  challenged  those  whose  notorious 
changes  revolted  his  feeling  of  honour.  Thus 
he  wrote  to  Mgr.  de  Salinis,  the  old  friend  of 
Lamennais  and  the  author  of  the  strange  ' '  Charge  " 


LAST  YEARS  187 

of  which  I  have  spoken,  a  letter  that  I  should  like 
to  be  able  to  quote  in  its  entirety,  so  proud  is  its 
tone.  It  ends  thus:  "  For  myself,  my  consola- 
tion, in  the  midst  of  such  moral  wretchedness,  is 
to  live  alone,  engaged  in  a  work  that  God  blesses, 
protesting  by  my  silence,  and  from  time  to  time 
by  my  words,  against  the  greatest  insolence  that 
has  ever  been  authorised  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ."  Almost  at  the  same  date  he  wrote  to  a 
friend  :  "  I  think  like  you  about  all  that  we  see. 
But  such  are  men.  We  must  keep  erect  in  the 
middle  of  their  abasement,  and  thank  God  for 
having  given  us  a  soul  capable  of  not  bend- 
ing before  the  wretchedness  that  success  crowns." 
To  keep  erect  is  the  example  that  Lacordaire  has 
always  given,  and  it  is  a  counsel  that  is  always 
good. 

With  this  generous  sadness  there  was  mingled 
a  still  closer  feeling.  The  man  who  had  loved  his 
age  so  much,  who  believed  he  understood  it  and 
was  understood  by  it,  suffered  from  feeling  him- 
self so  isolated  at  that  period,  so  far  apart  from 
the  new  movement  that  urged  it  forward  and  that 
caused  it  to  prefer  industrial  progress  to  liberal 
ideas.  "I  am,"  he  said,  "like  an  old  lion  who 
has  travelled  in  the  deserts,  and  who,  seated  on 
his  four  noble  paws,  looks  before  him,  with  a 
rather  melancholy  air,  at  the  sea  and  its  waves." 
Melancholy  in  truth  was  gaining  upon  the  old 
lion,  and  he  could  not  prevent  himself  from  ending 
one  of  his  letters  to  Madame  Swetchine  with  these 
words:  "Farewell,  dear  friend,  life  is  sad  and 
bitter  !  God  alone  puts  a  little  joy  into  it.  It  is 
He  Who  is  going  to  give  me  that  of  seeing  you 
again,  and  again  telling  you  how  much  I  love  you 
in  your  old  age,  you  who  have  experienced  so 
much,  and  of  saying  how  every  day  I  remember  all 
the  good  that  you  have  done  me." 


188  LACORDAIRE 

When  I  visited  Soreze,  I  was  shown  the  little 
cell  in  which  his  last  days  were  passed.  It  is 
approached  by  a  staircase  surmounted  by  a  little 
landing  ;  in  front  extends  a  long  walk  bordered 
by  plane-trees.  It  was  here  he  used  to  walk  as 
he  read  his  Breviary,  and,  in  the  distance,  his 
white  frock  and  black  mantle  used  to  be  seen 
coming  and  going  between  the  double  line  of 
trees.  Sometimes,  when  the  evening  was  fine, 
he  sat  on  the  landing,  and  plunged  into  reflec- 
tions the  subject  of  which  no  one  dared  to  ask 
him.  It  must  have  been  on  one  of  those  evenings 
that,  when  he  went  back  into  his  cell,  he  wrote 
these  lines  which  date  from  some  years  before  his 
death:  "  When  a  man  has  spent  his  life  in  dis- 
interested work,  and  when  at  the  endof  a  long  career 
he  sees  the  difficulty  of  things  gaining  on  desires 
and  efforts,  the  soul,  without  detaching  itself  from 
what  is  good,  experiences  the  bitterness  of  un- 
rewarded sacrifice,  and  it  turns  toward  God  with 
a  melancholy  which  virtue  condemns,  but  which 
Divine  goodness  pardons." 

A  last  trial  still  remained  for  him.  At  fifty- 
eight  years  of  age  he  felt  his  body  failing  his 
soul.  In  the  month  of  May,  i860,  already  very 
much  weakened,  he  had  wished  to  go  to  Saint- 
Maximin,  in  the  Department  of  the  Var,  in  order 
to  be  present  at  the  translation  of  the  relics  of 
Saint  Mary  Magdalene.  He  had  to  stop  on  the 
way,  and  then  to  return  to  Soreze.  "It  is  the 
first  time,"  he  wrote,  "that  my  body  has  con- 
quered my  will."  When,  in  the  month  of  January 
following,  he  went  to  Paris  to  deliver  his  reception 
address  at  the  French  Academy,  his  paleness  was 
attributed  to  the  emotion  caused  by  that  solemn 
session.  But  that  paleness  was  already  the  pallor 
of  death.  Youth,  health,  and  vigour  were  entirely 
on  the  side  of  M.  Guizot  who  received  him,  and 


LAST  YEARS  189 


it  was  a  curious  spectacle  to  see  the  Protestant 
welcoming  the  Dominican.  The  Order  of  Friars 
Preachers  gained  there  its  last  triumph.  Lacor- 
daire  returned  to  Soreze,  where  he  still  lingered 
for  several  months,  without  illusion  and  without 
hope,  but  at  least  surrounded,  from  near  and  far,  by 
the  passionate  solicitude  and  affection  of  all  thesouls 
he  had  loved,  and  all  the  lives  he  had  influenced 
for  good.  His  death  was  slow  and  painful.  It  lasted 
three  days.  He  had  lost  the  power  of  speech, 
but  his  intellect  was  still  alive.  Suddenly,  in  a 
supreme  convulsion,  he  drew  himself  up  in  his 
bed,  and  cried  out :  "  My  God  !  my  God  !  open 
unto  me  !  open  unto  me  ! "  This  cry  of  anguish 
and  of  hope  was  the  last  which  that  eloquent 
mouth  uttered.  On  the  next  day,  November  21st, 
1861,  he  died.  "More  light,"  Goethe  said,  at 
the  moment  when  death  began  to  dim  his  eyes. 
Lacordaire  had  not  to  ask  for  more  light,  for  his 
faith  believed  that  it  had  received  light  in  fulness, 
and  on  the  terrible  threshold  his  humility  doubted 
of  nothing  but  himself. 


INDEX 


"Affaires  de  Rome,"  28,  51,  54, 

96 
Affre,     Archbishop    of     Paris, 

Mgr.,    103,    108,    109,    138, 

162,  163 
America,  24-26,  29,  30,  63 
"Ami   de    la   Religion,"    The, 

77 
Aubusson,  The  Sub-Prefect  of, 

36-38 
"Avemr,"  The,  30,  32-34,  36- 
41,45,48,49,51,53,164 

Barnab£,  Citizen,  166 
Bautain,  The  Abbe,  84 
Berryer,  v,  7,  78 
Bordeaux,  146,  147 
Bouches-du-Rhone,  168,  171 
Bourdaloue,  m,  122,  124 
Boyer,  M.,  20 
Bridaine,  Father,  in,  112 

Caryste,  Bishop  of,  93 
Chasseriau,  104,  146 
Chateaubriand,  5,   11,  78,   102, 

123 
Chocarne,  Father,  vii,  1,  6,  8, 

18,53,  i5r>  !52 
Clemencey,  Citizen,  166 

Delorme,   Joseph    (see    Sainte- 

Beuve) 
Dijon,  1-6 

Dijon,  Bishop  of,  12,  13 
Dominicans,  Master-General  of 

the,  101,  103,  no,  142 
Dubois,  Mgr.,  Bishop  of  New 

York,  25,  26 
Dubois,   M.,   of   the   Loire-In- 

feVieure,  82 


Dupin,    M.,   Attorney-General, 
44 

Empire,  The  Second,  176-180 
11  Ere  Nouvelle,"  The,  164,  167, 

172 
■  Essay     on     Indifference     in 

Matters  of  Religion,"  114, 

Ferronnays,  Countess  Albert  de 

la,  102,  103 
Foisset,  M.,  vii,  4,  8,  16,  21-23, 

26,  29,  64,   168 
Forbin  Janson,  Mgr.  de,  127 
Free  School  Trial,   The,  46-48 
Friars  Preachers,  Order  of  (see 

Saint  Dominic,  Order  of) 

Gamier,  The  Abb£,  19 
Gerbet,  The  Abbe,  13,  28,  30, 

32,  60 
"Globe,"  The,  34 
Gregory  XVI.,  Pope,  55,  56,  60 
Guerin,  Eugenie  de,  90 
GueVin,  Maurice  de,  78 
Guillemin,  M.,  6,  165 
Guizot,   M.,    79,    83,    159,    180, 

181,'  188 

Hugo,  Victor,  78,  122,  123 

Issy,  Seminary  of,  13,  15-20 

Janvier,  M.,  45 
Jesuits,  97-99,  106,  149 
Jeudel,  Father,  179 

La  Chesnaye,  26,  28-30,  60-62, 
64 


190 


INDEX 


191 


Lacordaire,  Anne  Marie,  1,  2, 
6,  7,  12,  21 

Lacordaire,  Jean  Baptiste 
Henri,  vi,  vii  ;  birth  and 
childhood,  1,  2;  education 
and  character,  3-6  ;  early 
years  in  Paris,  7-12  ;  enters 
seminary  at  Issy,  13-18  ; 
at  the  Paris  seminary  and 
ordination,  19 ;  early  occu- 
pations and  sentiments, 
20-26 ;  friendship  with 
de  Lamennais,  29 ;  the 
"  Avenir,"  30-32;  friendship 
with  Montalembert,  33 ; 
writings  in  the  "  Avenir," 
34-41  ;  trials  and  speeches 
in  the  Courts  of  Law,  42-48 ; 
journey  to  Rome  and  the 
Memorandum,  49-56;  work 
in  the  Paris  hospitals, 
57,  58 ;  rupture  with  de 
Lamennais,  59-62 ;  in  Paris, 
63 ;  correspondence  with 
Montalembert,  64-68; 
friendship  with  Madame 
Swetchine,  70,  72-76 ;  first 
sermon,  77  ;  Stanislas  Lec- 
tures, 78 ;  denounced  to 
the  authorities,  79-8  r  ; 
sermons  at  Notre-Dame, 
84-92  ;  hopes  for  the  future, 
93-95  ;  rupture  with  Mgr. 
de  Qu&en,  96 ;  enters  the 
Order  of  Saint  Dominic  at 
Rome,  97-102;  return  to 
France,  subsequent  ser- 
mons and  restoration  of  the 
Dominican  Order,  103-106 ; 
further  sermons  at  Notre- 
Dame,  1 08- 1 10;  religious 
opinions  and  style  in  ser- 
mons, 116-131;  132-134; 
friendship  and  correspon- 
dence   with     Madame     de 

V ,  135-151  ;  his  habits, 

T52>  x53  5  friendship  with 
Madame  de  Prailly,  154- 
158  ;  political  opinions 
and  Lenten  sermons,  159- 
163;  The  "  £re  Nouvelle," 


164  ;  in  the  National 
Assembly,  165-170 ;  dis- 
appointed hopes  and  for- 
bodings,  171-174 ;  Lenten 
sermons,  175,  176;  Church 
policy,  177,  179  ;  ser- 
mons at  Saint  Roch  and 
Toulouse,  180,  181  ;  retire- 
ment and  work  at  Soreze, 
182-185  5  *ast  years  and 
death,  186-189 

Lacordaire,  Nicolas,  1 

Lamennais,  de,  15,  26-30,  32, 
45>  46>  5°-54,  &-6z,  64*  65, 
75>  79,  96>  IX4>  159,  l64> 
169,  186 

La  Quercia,  Convent  of,  10  r, 
102,  142,  144 

La  Quercia,  Master-General  of 
the  Convent  of  {see  Domini- 
cans, Master-General  of  the) 

Lenten  sermons,  161-163,  175, 
176 

Leo  XII.,  Pope,  52 

"Letter  on  the  Holy  See,"  96, 
159,  160 

"Letters  to  a  Young  Man  on 
the  Christian  Life,"  183,  184 

Liautard,  The  Abbe,  81,  84 

"Life  of  Saint  Mary  Mag- 
dalene," 150,  184,  185 

Lorain,  M.,  5,  7,  9,  16,  18,  19 

Lycee"  Henry  IV.,  20,  21,  42 

Lyon,  Vicar-General  of,  93 

Lyons,  152 

Maret,  The  Abbe,  164,  172 
Memorandum,  The,  54-56 
"Memorial  for  the  Re-establish- 
ment of  the  Friars  Preach- 
ers," 99,  100,  103 
Metz  Cathedral,  99 
Milan,  139 

Minerva  Convent,  The,  101 
Montalembert,  de,  vii,  28,  32,  33, 
46,  47,  50,  51,  56-59,  64-68, 
7I>72,  l35>  163,164,  166,174 
Munich,  58,  59 

National  Assembly,  The,  165, 
168-171,  173 


192 


LACORDAIRE 


"  Nineteenth-Century    Monk," 

A,  vii 
Nord,  M.  Martin  du,  104 
Notre-Dame,  12,  81,  84-92,  95, 
96,    99,    103-105,    108-110, 
130-132,  175,  176,    179,  183 

"On  Life,"  120,  181 
Ozanam,  84,  164 

Pacca,  Cardinal,  56 

Paris,  6,  9,  12,  19,  56-59,62-64, 
71-92,  96,  104,  105,  108, 
no,  138-140,  149,  153, 
161-163,  165,  167-170,  175, 
176,  179-181,  183,  188 

Paris,  Archbishop  of  (see  Qu&en, 
Mgr.  de  and  Affre,  Mgr.) 

Paris  Seminary,  The,  19 

Perreyve,  Abb^,  135 

Persil,    M.,    Attorney-General, 

47 
Prailly,  Baroness  de,   154-157, 
168,  179 

Qu^len,  Mgr.  de,  Archbishop 
of  Paris,  12,  19,  20,  62,  63, 
79-82,  84-86,  90,  92,  96,  99, 
103,  108,  136,  138,  141 

Ravignan,  Father  de,  96 
Recey-sur-Ource,  1 
Republic,  The  Second,  159-173 
Revolution  of  July,  1830,  29,  35, 

36,  4*1  55,  57 
Revolution  of  1848,  160-163 
Riambourg,  President,  6 
Rohan,  The  Abb£  de,  19 
Rome,  52-54,  56-59,  65,  66,  92, 
93,   95»   96»   101,   103,    137, 
139,  142,  144,  145,  150 


Sainte-Beuve,    14,    15,   59,    60, 

71.  83 

Saint  Dominic,  Life  of,  102 
Saint    Dominic,   Order  of,  97- 
106,  108,  no,  137,  139-142, 
146,  150,   152,  159,  177,  189 
Saint  Eusebius,  House  of,  97 
Saint  Jerome,  68-70,  73 
Saint-Louis  des  Francais,  103 
Saint  Roch,  Church  of,  77,  180 
Saint-Sulpice  (see  Issy,    Semi- 
nary of) 
Saint  Vincent  de  Paul  lectures, 

104 
Salinis,  Abbe"  de,  13,  186 
San  Clemente,  Convent  of,  144 
Siguier,  President,  7 
"  Society  for  Studies,"  The,  5 
Soreze,   146,    149-151,  182-184, 

188,  189 
Stanislas    College,  78,   81,   84, 

85>87 
Swetchine,  Madame,  70-77,  80, 
90,   96,  99,    101,    102,    109, 

135,  l36,  T39>  157,  i58.  J86, 
187 

Toulouse,  no,  120,  181,  182 
Tour-du-Pin,  Countess  Eudoxie 
de  la,  135 

"  Univers,"  The,  77 

V ,    M.    de,    135,    136,    138, 

140 

V ,  Madame  de,  135-151 

Visitandines,    Convent   of  the, 

20,  21,  57,  63 
"Vocation      of     the      French 

Nation,"  The,  105 
"VolupteY'  14,  15.  83 


WILLIAM    BRENDON    AND   SON,    LTD. 
PRINTERS,    PLYMOUTH 


The  LIFE  of  ST.  TERESA 

Based  upon  the  standard  French  Biography 
by  a  Carmelite  Nun 

<By  ALICE,  LADY  LOVAT 

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T  is  St.  Teresa  the  practical  Saint  rather  than 
St.  Teresa  the  Mystic  who  is  the  subject  of 
this  volume.     A  book  of  great  interest." 

— Daily  Ndws. 

"  It  is,  perhaps,  the  completest  life  of  the  Saint 
that  has  yet  been  written,  and  its  importance  could 
scarcely  be  better  attested  than  by  Mgr. 
Benson's  introduction — in  itself  a  fervid  and  beauti- 
fully cadenced  exordium.  To  say  that  Lady  Lovat 
has  done  her  laborious  part  with  the  utmost  care 
and  solicitude  is  barely  to  do  her  justice,  for  the 
work  reads  like  an  original  and  maintains  a  con- 
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"It  is  impossible  to  speak  in  terms  of  too  high 
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discharged  the  labour  of  love  and  reference  which 
she  undertook,  while  Mgr.  Benson's  preface  is  a 
veritable  synopsis  of  the  Church's  teaching  and 
doctrine  on  the  subject  of  the  spiritual  life." 

— Irish  Catholic. 

"The  Life  is  very  carefully  done,  based  as  all 
such  Lives  must  be,  on  the  authentic  writings  of 
the  Saint  herself,  and  discussing  the  various 
problems  connected  with  her  spiritual  experiences 
with  sympathetic  insight." — The  Month. 

"Almost  every  incident  in  the  Life  of  the  Saint 
from  her  childhood  is  related  in  this  volume  in  a 
simple  but  yet  in  so  striking  a  manner  as  to  stimulate 
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GENERAL  BOOTH   & 
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EFORE  the  appearance  of  the  present 
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MODERN  SURGERY 
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WHATEVER  subject  Dr.  Saleeby 
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LIFE    AND    LETTERS 

OF   JOHN   LINGARD 

1771-1851 

<By  MARTIN  HAILE  &  EDWIN  BONNEY 

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RAWING  upon  the  archives  of  the  Catholic 
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"There  was  room  for  an  authoritative  biography 
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"An  exceptionally  interesting  record  of  a  very 
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— Nation. 

"  In  this  volume  we  have  a  really  comprehensive 
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"A  biography  that  is  both  complete  and  accurate 
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"  The  recent  emergence  of  a  mass  of  hitherto 
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good  portraits  and  is  well  indexed,  is  in  effect  a 
notable  contribution  to  European  church  history." 

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THE    FORWARD 
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with   incidental  pen -portraits   of  typically 
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M  It  goes  with  energy  and  vim,  and  in 
the  rush  and  tear  of  its  movement,  compels 
us  to  accept  its  impossibilities  with  entire 
satisfaction.  It  is  a  good  comedy -book, 
especially  for  the  country  house  where 
sportsmen  and  sportswomen  foregather." 
— Daily  Chronicle. 

u  There  is  a  certain  naive  charm  about 
this  picture  of  a  don  turned  undergraduate 
for  love." — Spectator. 

"  A  nonsense-story  that  is  well  written, 
and  which  contains  some  dialogue  of  more 
than  common  crispness." — Saturday  Re- 
view. 

"The  story  is  brightly  written,  and  the 
reader  will  find  it  extremely  difficult  to  lay 
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ZOE.     A  Portrait 

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1  •  yt  TTEMPTS  the  delineation  of  a  certain 
r\  type  of  woman  with  considerable 
success,  and  handles  his  difficult 
subject  with  great  imaginative  insight.  Mr. 
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in  feminine  psychology." — Morning  Post. 

"  The  author  is  a  satirist  whose  enjoyment 
in  the  exposure  of  feminine  artfulness  is 
infectious." — Athenceum. 

"It  is  quite  excellent.  Zoe  is  wonderfully 
pretty  and  attractive  .  .  .  just  the  sort  of 
spider  that  plays  havoc  with  the  heart  of  the 
poor  male  butterfly." — Sheffield  Daily  Tele- 
graph. 

"  She  is  portrayed  with  so  engaging  a  skill 
in  delineating  woman's  waywardness,  that 
few  readers,  at  least  among  men,  will  allow 
any  feeling  of  blame  to  interfere  with  their 
enjoyment  of  the  story." — Scotsman. 

"  Zoe  is  a  brilliant  and  entrancing  study  of 
a  society  coquette,  and  the  audacity  with 
which  she  trifles  and  captivates  and  plays  off 
her  many  suitors  is  admirably  related.  It  is 
charmingly  written,  and  the  interest  splendidly 
sustained  till  the  end." — Dublin  Review. 

"The  story  is  refreshing  and  natural,  with 
a  quaint  humour  of  its  own." — Daily  Mirror. 


THE  LAND  OF   THE 
YELLOW    SPRING 

By  F.  HADLAND  DAVIS 

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iHEY  are  simple,  tender  idylls  of  the  every- 
day life  of  the  people — of  true  lovers  and 
false,  of  fathers  and  mothers  and  children, 
and  of  the  familiar  gods,  who  help  them  in  trouble." 

—  The  Observer. 

"  Stories  which  are  all  poems  in  prose  .  .  . 
beautifully  conceived  and  carefully  executed.  .  .  . 
Lafcadio  Hearn  would  have  welcomed  these  ardent 
stories  of  exotic  romance." — Morning  Post. 

"A  number  of  graceful  little  stories,  the  scene  of 
which  is  laid  in  the  Japan  which  Lafcadio  Hearn  has 
pictured  for  us,  the  Japan  of  the  gentle  brown  people, 
untouched  by  Western  ideals  and  unspoilt  by  modern 
commercialism." — The  Nation. 

"  The  stories  have  individual  merit,  for  in  them  the 
spirit  of  *  Old  Japan,'  in  contradistinction  to  that  of 
its  modern  awakening,  has  been  charmingly  caught 
and  expressed  in  a  beautiful  way.  .  .  .  Mr.  Davis 
may  be  warmly  complimented." — Scotsman. 

''They  reflect  the  poetry  and  colour,  the  chivalry 
and  tenderness  of  the  Japanese  people.  .  .  .  All 
who  read  these  stories  will  feel  that  there  is  something 
precious  and  beautiful  in  the  old  traditions  of  Japan." 
— Hearth  and  Home. 

"  The  note  of  melancholy  or  sadness  which  runs 
through  the  stories  is  blended  with  a  soft  mirth  and 
an  occasionul  twinkle  of  humour,  and  the  loves  of 
mortals  are  mostly  blended  with  the  intervention  of 
gracious  or  terrible  deities,  elusively  fascinating  and 
very  picturesque.  .  .  .  The  Japanese  flower- 
drawings  inside  the  covers  and  a  coloured  frontispiece 
of  an  iris  garden  in  rural  Japan,  make  a  pretty 
decoration  to  the  little  volume." —  Westminster  Gazette. 


THE    CHARM   OF 
INDIA 

By   CLAUD    FIELD 
F'cap  8vo,  3s.  6d.  net  Leather,  5s.  net 


HERBERT 
y  DANIEL 
95NewBond 
Street  W. 


MR.  CLAUD  FIELD  has  collected, 
from  a  great  variety  of  sources, 
passages  of  prose  descriptive 
of  India  and  all  things  Indian.  He  has 
succeeded  in  covering  a  wonderful  extent 
of  ground  in  a  field  of  infinite  interest,  and 
he  has  laid  under  a  discriminating  tribute 
authors  English,  French,  and  Indian." — 
Daily  Telegraph. 

"Mr.  Field's  compilation  succeeds 
where  many  more  ambitious  books  have 
failed,  in  giving  a  very  vivid  sense  of  the 
extraordinary  multifariousness  and  variety 
of  Indian  life." — Spectator. 

4 'Travel,  camp-life,  history,  folk-lore, 
and  the  religion  of  India  find  their  place. 
It  is  a  book  which  I  recommend  without 
hesitation  for  the  charm  of  its  format 
and  the  delight  of  its  contents."— T. P. 's 
Weekly. 

"  It  should  go  into  the  library  of  every 
Anglo-Indian." — Sunday  Times. 

"The  book  gives  us  many  new  im- 
pressions and  is  well  worth  reading." — 
Western  Morning  News. 


OLIVER'S    KIND 
WOMEN 

By   PHILIP    GIBBS 

Juthor  of  "The  Street  of  Adventure" 

Crown  8vo    6s.  Popular  Edition,  2s.  net 


0 


HERBERT 
y  DANIEL 
95NewBond 
Street  W. 


T 


IHIS  is  distinctly  a  novel  that  counts.  It  is 
worth  reading  slowly  and  carefully,  and 
yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  absorbing1 
enough  to  carry  the  reader  on  from  page  to  page 
with  as  much  speed  as  is  possible." — The  World. 


4 '  Virginia  Garland  was  a  woman  of  indomitable 
spirit  and  fine  sensibility,  one  of  the  best  realised 
and  the  best  worth  realising  characters  in  modern 
fiction — a  sensitive  spring  of  fine-polished  steel 
might  describe  her  roughly — but  she  cannot  be  fully 
known  save  in  Mr.  Gibbs'  full-length  portrait  of 
her." — Morning  Post. 

M  In  many  respects  this  is  the  best  novel  Mr. 
Gibbs  has  given  us.  The  scene,  the  background, 
the  atmosphere  are  wonderfully  true  to  life, 
especially  in  the  chapters  placed  in  the  seedy-side 
of  London.  Mr.  Gibbs  has  an  eye  for  the  world 
he  moves  and  works  in,  and  the  gift  of  telling 
effectively  whatever  he  sees." — Daily  Chronicle. 

"  Mr.  Gibbs  has  given  us  two  or  three  delicate 
portraits  which  must  charm  the  most  cynical ;  full 
of  variety,  yet  each  sound  and  true.  The  book 
abounds,  moreover,  in  passages  of  real  wit,  happily 
turned  phrases,  revealing  character  or  situation  in 
a  sentence.  A  slight  book,  but  extraordinarily 
clever." — The  Gownsman. 

"  Its  keen  observation,  and  much  of  its  por- 
traiture, claim  for  it  a  prominent  place  among  the 
fiction  of  the  moment." — The  Globe. 

"The  book  is  charmingly  written,  with  humour, 
grace,  sympathy,  and  insight." — The  Lady. 


Cross-in-Hand  Farm 

By  Viola  Meynell 

Author  of  "  MARTHA  VINE,"  a  love  story 
of  simple  life 

6s. 


A  QUIET  study  in  human  loveliness  .  .  .  This  veiled 

tragedy  of  the  emotions  is  very  beautifully  and 
cleverly  described.  The  development  of  the  situation 
is  extraordinarily  interesting,  while  the  village  back- 
ground is  alive  with  native  poetry  and  wit.  This 
romance  has  qualities  of  a  rare  charm,  and  its  old-world 
atmosphere  is  sweet  as  lavender. — Daily  Telegraph. 
A    VERY  pretty  study  in  emotion,  sincere  in  feeling 

and  delicate    in    treatment.       It  has  flashes  of 
comedy,  some  happy  descriptive  passages,  and  reveals 
an  idealistic  outlook  on  life. — Westminster  Gazette. 
HpHE  promise  of  Martha  Vine  has  ripened  to  a  swift 

fulfilment.  The  pathos  of  some  of  the  passages 
in  Cross-in-Hand  Farm  is  so  intimate  and  penetrating 
that  it  is  poignant,  but  the  writer's  sense  of  comedy 
never  fails  her,  and  finds  delightful  and  frequent 
expression. — The  Tablet. 
£  ROSS-IN-HAND  FARM  is  a  simple  story  both  in 

plot  and  telling,  but  none  the  less  attractive  for 
that.  Miss  Meynell  has  a  neat  and  direct  style, 
touched  by  humour  of  a  rare  dry  kind  ....  Her 
minor  characters  are  excellently  drawn,  and  stand 
out  clearly  before  our  eyes ;  while  Jane,  the  gentle 
heroine,  is  no  less  than  a  darling. —  Opening  Standard. 

^RITTEN  in  the  best  of  simple  English  ...  She 
—  has  a  curious  trick  of  summing  up  and  punctu- 
ating, as  it  were,  a  situation  by  a  snatch  of  conversa- 
tion which  would  be  meaningless  by  itself,  and  now  and 
then  she  gives  a  cute  rap  over  the  knuckles  to  her  char- 
acters, and  lays  bare  their  weaknesses  in  a  sharp 
sentence . . .  Undoubtedly  clever,  and  will  give  genuine 
pleasure  from  beginning  to  end. — {Morning  Tost. 

HERBERT  &  DANIEL,  95  New  Bond  St.,  W 


BUSINESS   RIVALS 

•By   F.    HARRIS    DEANS 

With  a  Frontispiece  by  Will  Owen 

Crown  8vo 
6s. 


A 


DELIGHTFUL  story  in  the  style  of  W.  W.  Jacobs. 
Excellent  for  light  reading." — Daily  Mirror. 


"  A  very  entertaining  story  in  the  Jacobs  manner.  .  .  . 
A  jaded  age  cannot  afford  to  miss  '  Business  Rivals.' " 

—  Westminster  Gazette. 

li  For  sheer,  unrestrained  comedy,  the  best  story  we  have 
read  for  a  long  time.  It  is  one  subdued,  jolly  chuckle  from 
beginning  to  end — not  only  by  reason  of  its  comical 
situations,  but  because  of  the  excellent  art  with  which  the 
plot  and  its  characters  are  gradually  disclosed.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Deans  set  out  in  a  mood  of  irresponsible  fun  to  entertain 
whomsoever  should  read  his  book,  and  he  gave  us  more 
laughs  in  an  hour  than  we  have  had  for  a  month  past." — 
The  World. 

"This  is  a  farce,  sustained  and  high-spirited — a  kind  of 
forceful  mixture  of  Mr.  Jacobs  and  the  American  humorists. 
...  It  rollicks  along,  without  much  desire  to  convince, 
but  with  the  sole  and  laudable  purpose  of  making  us  grin 
until  our  maxillary  muscles  ache.     They  do." — Daily  Mail. 

"Just  the  book  for  an  idle  moment,  to  laugh  over  on  a 
lazy  afternoon." — Daily  Chronicle. 

11  Mr.  F.  Harris  Deans  has  produced  a  story  somewhat  in 
the  vein  of  Mr.  W.  W.  Jacobs,  and  it  is  therefore  appropriate 
that  Mr.  Will  Owen  should  contribute  a  coloured  frontis- 
piece to  the  volume — appropriate  because  this  artist  has 
always  caught  the  spirit  of  the  merry  fooling  of  the  author 
of  *  Old  Craft'  and   'Many  Cargoes.'" — Sunday   Times. 

HERBERT  &  DANIEL,  95  New  Bond  Street,  W. 


AN     ANTHOLOGY   OF 
IMAGINATIVE   PROSE 

Sy  Professor  R.   P.   COWL 
F'cap  8vo  3s.  6d.  net 


THE  aim  of  this  book  is  to  exemplify  the  powers 
of  English  prose  as  a  medium  of  imaginative  or 
poetic  expression,  and  to  illustrate  the  wealth  of  our 
literature  in  those  varieties  of  prose  generally  described  as 
ornate,  impassioned,  condensed  or  rhythmical. 

PXESS   COMMENTS: 
"This  is   a  genuine  anthology,  classified  according-  to  a  method 
finely  selective." — The  Athenceum. 

"  It  was  time  some  editor  attempted  to  show  by  illustrative 
examples  how  rich  English  prose  is  in  its  emotional  range,  its  command 
of  the  picturesque,  its  changes  of  cadence  and  modulation,  its 
parsimony  with  or  prodigality  in  ornament.  Professor  Cowl  does  us 
such  a  service  in  his  Anthology  of  Imaginative  Prose,  which  surveys 
this  class  of  literature  from  the  days  of  Mandeville  to  those  of  '  Fiona 
Macleod.'" — Sunday  Times. 

"  Professor  Cowl  has  proved  himself  worthy  of  the  task  he  has 
undertaken,  and  it  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  testify  emphatically 
to  the  merits  of  this  Golden  Treasury  of  English  prose.  The  nice  yet 
Catholic  taste,  his  sense  of  proportion  and  of  harmony,  his  judgment 
both  critical  and  distinguished  have  produced  a  work  which  all  true 
lovers  of  literature  will  read  and  prize  and  re-read  with  increasing 
gratitude." — The  Bookman. 

"  The  whole  book  is  inspiring  and  is  a  storehouse  of  good  things." 
— The  Academy. 

"  There  will  be  few  readers  opening  this  volume  who  do  not  light 
on  some  new  vein  of  literary  wealth  unknown  to  them  till  now." — The 
Observer. 

"  One  of  the  most  charming  anthologies  we  have  seen  for  some  time. 
.  .  .  It  is  produced  in  exceptionally  artistic  form  and  the  selection 
is  admirable  throughout — we  have  found  in  it  nothing  that  can  be 
described  as  second  rate,  and  the  choice  made  from  the  first  rate  is 
particularly  good." — The  Guardian. 

"This  little  book  is  packed  full  of  some  of  the  finest  passages  in  the 
English  language,  passages  that  are  alive  with  music  and  that  contain 
all  the  essential  qualities  of  poetry." —  Western  Daily  Press. 

HERBERT  &  DANIEL,  95  New  Bond  Street,  W. 


DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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267176 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNU  MBSARY 


